Mud prints

Meera leaned against the wooden frame of the doorway pretending to read. She was watching her stepmother through the corner of her eye as she stepped out of the room after a prolonged bath, smelling distinctly of jasmine. She had yards of cotton draped loosely around her; the ends dripping, clinging to her arms and the back of her calves. She pulled up an armchair to the edge of the balcony and sat herself down, her feet tucked in underneath. She stretched her neck out, gathering locks of her luscious hair to one side. She ran her fingers through them, tracing their trails with a fine comb. She smoothened the tangles with utmost care, caressing and whispering to them as if they were truant children. There was no sense of urgency in her movements. Meera wondered what it would be like to live the vacuous life of a rich man’s wife; one who needed nothing and one who no one needed. She would have probably withered, slowly slipping out of collective memory like a vase that once adorned the mantelpiece that now lay broken somewhere amidst mounds of filth. Her stepmother, however, seemed strangely content. Her lips bore a tinge of melancholy at times, as if she nestled a tiny void somewhere deep within, but her eyes flickered with gratitude.

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The Roychoudhury household spent their summers in a sprawling mansion in Chandannagore; a house that had seen a bundle of generations gradually grow out of their childhood levity over the past hundred and fifty years. The locals said it used to be the celebrated residence of a feudal lord once, who spent his days catering to the needs of British colonizers, and his nights leering at courtesans, inundated with the finest wines in the region. With the onset of Independence, the coffers dried up and soot settled in the nooks of the chandeliers in the dining room. Consequently soon after his death, the house fell silent and was reduced to a mere shadow of its former glorious self. It was well into the sixties when Mr. Roychowdhury started overseeing the construction of a brand new jute mill in Chandannagore which required him to live there for months at a time. As business burgeoned, he decided to acquire this forgotten piece of property and considering there was no one who cared enough to invest in it, the process was a breeze.

Meera started accompanying her father on his summer trips to Chandannagore since she was eight. Her brother was popular and had numerous friends peppered across their neighbourhood, who would call out to him from the pavement every evening to join them for a game of cricket. Women, needless to say, were not welcome. Meera tried befriending the girls on her street. However, she quickly outgrew playing house and hosting imaginary tea parties. It was then that she convinced her father to take her with him on his annual trips. Every year school closed in May for the holidays, she could not wait to get on that train teeming with animated peddlers hollering limericks in shrill sing-song voices as they jostled their way through the crowd. Some of them sold brightly coloured trinkets or delectable fried potato rolls, while others pushed for peculiar herb concoctions that promised to cure every malady ranging from concussions to indigestion. Meera was fascinated by what was in those illegibly labeled dark glass bottles and pressed her father to buy some occasionally. But each time, he replied in his characteristic dry monotone, not once looking up from his daily; ‘Dear, I love you too much to listen to you.’

When Meera laid eyes on the house for the first time, she couldn’t believe that it was hers. It had a stately façade, its shoulders resting on robust Victorian pillars and its staircases manned by faded marble lions. The hallways stretched out so far that she couldn’t see one end from the other. She was certain that if she ever were to peal the plaster off, she’d find hidden plates of gold. At the heart of the garden in front was a stone fountain; a mythical fish that spouted water from its mouth, looking out to the forest beyond, its speckled scales glistening in the afternoon sun. The walls inside the house were peopled with portraits of noblemen, some decked up in bejeweled turbans and emerald broaches, while others were in tailored suits with pasty oiled hair, their brows boasting of an English education. Meera spent hours staring at the portraits, weaving ornate webs of fantasy, wondering what each of them were like in person. She had named them after characters she had come across in fairy tales, and created a world around them. On some days she was the queen who meted out punishments to subjects in court, while on less fortunate days, she decided to assume the role of the housemaid who the prince fell in love with. Her stories made no sense to the cynical world outside, but to her they had meaning. She found companionship in what blind men perceived as a bunch of mute stretched out canvases. She gave them wings and took flight with them.

-----------------

Meera eyed her stepmother surreptitiously as she locked her flowing tresses into patterned braids. She watched her as a droplet of water quietly made its way down her back, like a string of pearls on satin. Meera shifted in her seat uncomfortably and shut the book that she had been trying to read all this time. She stood up, walked up to her dresser and grabbed a bottle of bright red nail paint instead. She resumed her seat against the doorway and began sweeping her toes with generous coats of crimson, audibly blowing puffs of air to accelerate the drying process. She made sure that a lot of noise was made, albeit unnecessary, hoping to attract her stepmother’s attention.

“That colour does not suit you Meera. Why don’t you try some of mine?”

Meera looked up. Her stepmother was smiling; good-natured disapproval writ large upon her face. In that moment, she could not stand her tone of jest.

“What do you know? You’re old.”

Meera went back to painting her toes, this time with renewed vigour. Her stepmother said nothing. The spite hung awkwardly in the air. Just then little Mrinalini came running into the balcony in her knickers, severely out of breath, her neck caked in talcum powder.

“Ma, didi! Look! It’s going to rain.”

They looked out the balcony and spotted the tiniest of rain clouds accumulating in the distance, making their way towards the mansion.

“Oh thank god! The heat would have killed me if it went on this way for another day. Mrin, go put some clothes on. I don’t want you to fall ill”, her mother said; her voice ringing with concern.

“But I want to get wet in the rain, Ma”, she said, passionately objecting to her mother’s instruction.

“No you won’t.” Her mother refused to bend.

Mrin said nothing and ran out of the balcony. She shot past the bedroom and down the stairs like a bolt of lightning. Her mother sensed what she was about to do.

“Meera! Please stop her!” she implored, “She’ll only listen to you.”

Meera forgot all about her wet toes and ran after her sister, her nails bleeding paint from the corners, calling out to her from behind, her step mother frantically trying to keep up. The hallway turned dark in minutes as the rain clouds encroached upon it from all sides. She imagined the chandeliers being lit up, nautch girls dancing to the tune of the sarangi, and noblemen reclining on gilded couches sniffing garlands coiled around their wrists. Meera heard a rumbling in the distance, and almost instantly the heavens burst forth, the rain descending on the parched land with vengeance. Mrin squealed in delight, rolling down the stairs and into the garden. She stood there with her arms outstretched, felicity gushing out of every pore in her tiny naked self. 

As they watched her dance in the rain, her mother said, “Meera! Let’s get her!” There was a mischievous glint in her eye, and before Meera knew it, she started screaming out her daughter’s name, and rushed down the stairs, laughing like a schoolgirl. Mrin giggled hysterically and sped towards the clump of trees in the distance as fast as her feet could carry her. Meera pursued them as if she was in a trance. Her mind was blank, and felt light and fluffy as cotton. They entered a cove surrounded by palm and bamboo hedges, shuffling one behind the other. There was a humongous pit right in the middle. It was replete with grime and floating damp leaves. They had nowhere else to go. It was as if they had hit a wall. They stood at the edge for a minute and stared down at the rippling muck. Suddenly, Meera felt her stepmother grab her palm, as she dragged her into the crater. They laughed and cackled as they frolicked in the mud, like pigs in a pool of feculence. The leaves rustled nervously as their voices rose from the abyss, like a phoenix from a pile of cinders and as they ascended, they lost their way among the array of bamboo trunks and incessant trickling rivulets.

Freedom

The doors of the wardrobe were ajar and Sam was standing before it, unable to decide what to wear. He stared at the endless array of beige, browns and blues hanging off the racks. Any other man could not have comprehended the extended period of indecision. The shirts in fact all looked the same; cotton clones dyed a barely different colour. But it was not as if he did not care what he wore. In reality he cared a little too much to look the same every day of the year. Sam believed wearing a vibrant shade needed him to be a different person. It was easier to be an appendage of the wall and pretend like he did not exist.

Sam was barely a teenager when he left home and it had been twenty years since he looked back. He could hardly remember what his father looked like. He took care not to hold on to any of his pictures. He did better without reminders of his indifference. His father did try to visit him at Glenwood occasionally, but each time he feigned sickness or absence. He had struck a ten-rupee deal with the guard there, who lied for him dutifully. There were perks to not having a parent. He could always do what he liked and never needed permission. He even got invited to friends’ houses during holidays where parents greeted him with added affection and sugar treats. Pity was not always bad if one knew how to use it right. Sam was happy being an orphan. He had made his peace with it. So when the lady on the phone reminded him of the father he once had, he found it incredibly exacting to acknowledge the lie that he’d chosen to live for two decades. What right did she have to upset the balance? Sam threw in a change of clothes in his duffel bag and left for the bus station. He was determined to make his trip short. He had a lot to say to his father but it felt almost futile to have a conversation with him after all these years. He rehearsed a few lines in his head either way, just to be safe.

                                           -------------------

The house looked almost the same since he had left at thirteen, except that it carried a jaded look about itself. The garden that once happened to be his mother’s obsession was replaced by a patch of austere concrete. The facade was still white with maroon panels, but it seemed like it hadn’t had the fortune of a fresh coat of paint in years. He walked up to the doorway and rang the bell. It almost screeched in response. A lady opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Hello. I’m Sam. We talked on the phone a few weeks back?” He didn’t want to go about the elaborate introduction again and decided to appeal to her memory to do it for him.

“Ofcourse. Samarth. You’re Mr. Khanna’s son right? Please come in.” 

She ushered him in as if she was expecting him. There was no surprise in her voice. No apprehension. He remembered her tone of familiarity on the phone and it irritated him no less. Why did she have to act like she knew him?

“I’m glad you came to see him. Mr. Khanna is probably sleeping. Do you want some water? I’m sorry. There’s nothing else in the house right now.”

“It’s okay. I’m not thirsty.”

She was around sixty, nearly about the same age as his father. Her hair was mostly silver, tied up in a bun behind her head. She was dressed in white, nothing expensive but clean, and neatly pleated across her shoulder. Her face had a hint of kindness that made him oddly uncomfortable. He almost wished that she was rude. It would have probably made it easier for him to avoid an unnecessary exchange of words and leave. Sam was trying to figure out who she was. He thought she was his father’s new wife when they first spoke. But there were no pictures of her on the walls, no trace of vermillion in her parting. Who was she?

“You must be wondering who I am.”

She answered him almost instantaneously, as if she could read his mind. Sam felt vulnerable and partially scowled in an effort to camouflage.

“It’s okay. It’s only normal. I’m your dad’s nurse.”

Sam did not know how to respond. He simply asked, “So what happened?”

“Your fatheris forgetting things. He has, what doctors say, an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s.”

Sam looked down at the floor. The tiles still bore the same speckled pattern that once fascinated him.

“Can I see him?” he said, still looking away.

“Yes of course. He’s in his room resting. You know where it is.”

She smiled. He did know where it was. He walked up the stairs, a bundle of nerves, not knowing what to expect. He entered his father’s room and saw a man lying on the bed, staring outside the window. He looked nothing like the person he once knew. His face was gaunt, and his parched, shriveled skin was stretched out taut over his bones, riddled with old scars. His shirt did nothing to hide his showing ribs and tubes were plugged to his bladder. His fingers were bent inexplicably; his nails had dried up like peanut shells. As Sam entered the room, he looked at him for a moment but his eyes bore no sense of recognition.

“Do you recognize me dad?” he asked. 

Sam knew the answer already but he had no idea what else to say. All the lines that he had rehearsed on his way there had not prepared him for this in the least. The man looked at him for another long minute but said nothing. He went back to staring outside the window.

Sam looked around the room. The walls were damp and peeling. There was a layer of dust on the rocking chair parked next to the window. It used to be his father’s favourite haunt. When Sam was little, he spent many a monsoon afternoon sitting there with him, hearing stories about Jim Corbett and his exploits with the striped cats. Sam walked over to the desk and started rifling through the things in the drawers. Beneath stacks of old grocery lists and drugstore prescriptions, he unearthed a picture of the three of them from the time they had gone to Shimla. His father had a drooping moustache then. He was in his mother’s lap, barely three years old, half his tiny face buried underneath bright red woolens. The picture had a tint of yellow across, like plaque on enamel. But through the haze, he could still see how happy they once were. He rummaged through the drawer again, and found a crumpled boat he had made out of scrap paper from a notebook once. His father had still managed to hold onto it after all these years. He held his father’s wrinkled hand one last time, tucked the picture and the paper boat in his wallet and walked out.

                                      -----------------------

The bus arrived after an hour long wait and Sam climbed in with his duffel bag. The nurse had urged him to stay over. He even carried a change of clothes with him, but he eventually decided against it. He did not think he had any purpose being there and his father was undoubtedly in capable hands. He thanked her profusely when he left and asked her to give him a call if she ever needed anything. He walked down the empty corridor and sat next to a window near the end. The bus rattled as it made its way down the bumpy road. Sam noticed a fly buzzing impatiently near the chipped corners of the window, desperate to escape the trap it had unknowingly got itself into. It seemed like someone was calling out to it from afar.  As he pushed the creaky window open, the balmy air poured in and swept the winged creature out. 

Sleep

Meera stood there blindfolded, an invisible voice whispering, goading her to take a step further. A crow cawed ominously in the distance begging to be heard, its voice cracking under the strain. Her hands were free, and yet she did not feel the urge to take the blindfold off, which was pressing down on her eyes roving restlessly in the darkness underneath. Her feet were bare against the icy stone steps while the wind stabbed her face relentlessly with what felt like tiny shards of glass. She heard the lapping of water a few feet in front of her, and yet she moved forward, the faceless voice getting louder and more persuasive in her head. She enveloped her growing belly, hoping to hear her baby one last time. But she heard nothing. It was as if she was harbouring a lifeless bubble inside her all this time. She walked into the freezing lake, as currents coiled around her limbs like hungry vines to a trellis, waiting to devour her. Water invaded her nostrils and gushed down her throat. As her leaden womb dragged her into the abyss, she did not scream. Neither did she struggle. She simply let go of the reigns that had kept her from falling off the precipice.

                                                      ---------------

Her palms were still wet when she woke up. There was no blindfold stifling her eyes anymore, no heartbeat in her uterus; just a scar that throbbed when she felt utterly alone. She never had a chance to see her baby, but deep inside she knew it was a girl. She would have been two today. At times she wondered what she would have been like. She wished she had her eyes and maybe her husband’s chin. But even if she hadn’t, Meera would have still loved and guarded her with a mother’s ferocity. If only she had a chance.  She looked at the table in the corner of the room, its jagged end glowing under the lamp light; the one that went right through her baby’s tiny heart. It called out to her in a voice echoing with disdain, ‘You could not have done it. Stop lying to yourself, you selfish whore.’ She looked away. Meera had been meaning to destroy the table for a very long time, but had eventually decided against it. It seemed to be the only reminder of the baby she once bore and served to keep her alive, albeit in a morbid sort of way.

It was three in the morning. There was someone terribly impatient at the door, ringing the bell like a child’s plaything. She got up from under her quilt and walked across the dining room to answer it; her hair matted across her forehead, her palms still dripping with sweat, her body cold against the lace of her nightgown. Her husband was waiting outside leaning against the porch, struggling to keep his bloodshot eyes open. He stumbled into the living room, barely looking at her. He had returned after three days, probably after being banished from several bars. She did not ask him where he was all this time.

‘Do you want dinner? I can fix you something if you want.’ She did not make the slightest effort to hide her apathy.

‘What’re you stupid?! I’m not hungry.’ He almost spit the venom out, his breath reeking of alcohol.

Meera said nothing. Abuse had been the only constant in her five years of marriage. She was strangely glad to be called stupid. Bruises were more what she was used to.

‘Give me my pills and get the hell out of my sight! Your ugly face gives me nightmares.’ He laughed at his own loathsome sense of humour.

Meera fetched herself a glass of water and walked into the bathroom to get his barbiturates. Her ugly face gave him nightmares, he said. What about the one that she was living out for the past five years, the one that she could not wake up from? She smiled at the irony of it all. She dropped a tablet into the glass of water and watched it while it collapsed into a million white fragments and disappeared in a frenzy of bubbles with sheer abandonment. Then her eyes fell on the shower drain. It brought back flashes of the thread of vermilion that emanated from between her legs, meandering past the wet tiled floor, forming a cesspool around it. She had lost her child to her husband’s drunken rage that night. It was the same December night two years ago, and nothing had changed since then. Only she had stopped living, and no one even noticed. Not even her. She held the bottle of barbiturates and poured them all into the glass; an endless stream of white.

Meera took one hard look at the glass of water. The camouflage was uncanny. She walked into the bedroom. Her husband was already there, waiting for his pills. He could not sleep without them.

‘I don’t have all day. Give me those damned pills already!’

He snatched the glass from her hand and gulped it down. Not a drop fell out the corners of his mouth. He put the empty glass down on the bedside table and threw himself on the bed. Meera sat there watching him sleep, still cold against the lace of her nightgown. There was one moment when it seemed like he was in pain, like someone was crushing his windpipe from within. But the writhing lasted for only a few minutes. She looked at the clock. It had almost been an hour since he took the pills. She walked upto him and placed her finger under his nose. There were no periodic bursts of breath, no gentle heaving of his chest. Meera looked at his face. She could not remember the last time she had really looked at him. He had never been more at peace. The demon had left his body it seemed. Its work there was done. Somewhere inside his still lifeless form, Meera could see the poet she had once fallen in love with. The world was too cruel for his poetry. It had stifled the rhyme in him, leaving behind a vicious beast. But it was all good now. He is free, she said to herself. She fluffed his pillows, kissed his cold forehead, and covered him with the quilt. Meera looked outside the window. It was almost daybreak and her retired neighbours were probably getting ready for their morning exercise ritual. She needed to alert them. Meera grabbed her shawl and walked out of the house in her red slippers. The winter air smelled of virgin dew. 

The Letter

Scribbled in haste. Folded neatly into a square. Tucked underneath the desk lamp.

                                                -----------------

It was late afternoon when Sam pried his tired eyes open. The hurricane had subsided by then and fluffy desiccated clouds peered in through the window. He didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, but for once, he wasn’t staring at cobwebs stretched across the corners of the ceiling that desperately needed cleaning. He was with Meera. And they had made love like parched travelers in a flaming desert. He was half expecting to find her sleeping next to him; curled up in a ball, disarrayed locks strewn over her face with reckless abandon. But she was gone, leaving behind a hollow at the heart of an empty pillow; a hollow that had cradled her head through the night. Leaning against the headrest, he stared at the vacant half of the bed longingly for several static minutes. He was searching for remnants of her absent form in the contours of the soiled linen. He could tell how she had aligned her bent knee, how she had arched her back at an odd angle, and how her limb rested itself over her forehead out of sheer habit. Why did she leave without telling him? Had he done something to hurt her? Sam craved for a cup of steaming tea laced with a hint of cardamom. It never failed to cheer him up. It reminded him of the wintry Sunday mornings at Glendale, when he would hop down the chilly stone staircase in nothing but flimsy pajamas and threadbare socks, determined to make it for breakfast while the rest of the school slept underneath heavy cotton quilts. But sitting alone at the edge of the bed, the impetus slipped out of him. He dipped a teabag in a cup of boiling water instead, sipping out of it dispassionately. 

Sam walked up to the door of the balcony and looked around the room trying to put the pieces together. He noticed the shirt that he wore the day before, bunched up at the foot of the bed. It happened to be his favourite shirt. A date with Meera deserved some careful dressing. However, it still looked soaking wet. He probably wouldn’t be able to wear it again. Maybe he would preserve it for posterity, as a mark of a new beginning. 

He closed his eyes and tried to relive their time together. But it was all awfully blurry. The room was dark as night with the curtains drawn. Sam remembered how Meera had fought to keep the lights off, although he desperately wanted to see. She was strangely adamant and Sam had no choice but to relent. There was an irrational sense of urgency in her lovemaking. While he tried to smell her hair and taste the beads of sweat dripping down the nape of her neck, she bit his lips and clawed at his arms, digging tiny furrows down his back. It’s not that he didn’t like it. He just wasn’t prepared. She thrashed around like a caged animal, years of captivity propelling her towards liberation. Sam could hear her pounding heart, threatening to rip her breast apart. He frantically tried to hold her down lest she got hurt; lest she escaped. But what he didn’t know was that he was her freedom, and she was latching on to him for dear life. After hours of grappling in the dark, fervently holding on to each other, Meera finally gave up the fight and collapsed on her side, exhausted. For a moment he thought she was crying. Her breath echoed within the patchy damp walls.

Sam noticed a note, folded beneath the desk lamp. He didn’t remember seeing it there before. He put down his cup of bland tea and opened it. It was a letter from Meera. 

“Dear Sam,

Last night was a dream I didn’t want to wake up from. But I always knew it had to end, like all dreams do with the onset of dawn. Yesterday taught me that life wasn’t over when I thought I had breathed my last, years ago. You showed me that I was more than just a living corpse, rotting away from the core, and the stench that spilled out of my pores was hardly mine. With you, I felt like the one I used to be and caught a glimpse of the one I so wanted to become. And all of this in mere hours. I robbed you of a day, only to selfishly find myself, and for that I truly apologize. I’m sorry if I made you think that 'this' was more than that. But I cannot drag you into the whirlpool that is my life. So I’m leaving, in search of emancipation, to set things in order, treading the path that you opened for me, albeit unknowingly. You know how to love Sam, not just like a man, but as a person. You shouldn’t keep it bottled up within your stiff collars. Share it with the world, with hapless lost souls like me. Give them a reason to live, for God knows they’re waiting. I did not want to wake you and say goodbye. I was afraid of the finality that comes with it. So in the hope that our paths will cross someday I take your leave. Knowing you was a gift and I wish you all the happiness.

Love

Meera.”

Sam took his time to grasp what he was reading. It couldn’t really be the end, could it? The letters were neatly formed, all slanting to the right; sturdy and sure. There wasn’t a scratch in the entire page, which made him think, that she had composed this a million times before in her head. A day was too little time. He wanted so much more. He walked to the balcony and looked down at the street below. The hurricane had reduced the makeshift shops to a pile of rubble and tattered tarpaulin. He imagined Meera making her way through the midst of the wreckage, red slippers in hand, tousled hair thrown to the wind, not bothering to turn back once, while vast expanses of azure resonated with destiny’s derision.

Sam felt like he was drowning in quicksand, plugging his nose and stifling his throat. He didn’t know what to do. He grabbed his phone and dialed the only number he knew by heart. He hadn’t called home in twenty years and he was certain that no one would answer. But he heard someone at the other end. Strangely it was a woman.

“Hello?”

Sam didn’t know what to say. He was expecting his dad’s gruff voice.

“Umm.. Sorry. This is Sam. Is this the Khanna residence?”

“Yes it is. Who’re you looking for?”

“I was wondering if Mr. Khanna was home. Never mind. It was a mistake.”

”No. He is. It’s just that he’s not well and no one has called in to check on him for years. So it was a little unexpected. Are you a friend of his?”

Sam was debating whether to tell her who he was. His dad probably hadn’t even mentioned that he existed. He must have remarried. Not that he cared. But he decided to tell the truth anyway.

“I’m his son. Sam… Samarth? He’s probably never mentioned me.”

The voice fell silent at the other end. He could almost hear the flurry of thoughts racing through her mind.

“Anyway it was nice talking to you ma’am”, he said. He couldn’t remember why he had called in the first place.

“Wait. I don’t know you, but that doesn’t matter. You’re his family. Would you mind coming down to visit him sometime? I know it’s not my place to ask you this, but Mr. Khanna doesn’t have a lot of time left, and meeting someone familiar might help him remember. I don’t know how far away you live, but I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Not to be rude ma’am, but how would you know anything about my regrets?” He couldn’t stand her tone of familiarity.

”I agree. I don’t. But I care about him. And he looked happy in the pictures with you. It’s obvious that I cannot force you. But please do consider it.”

A click at the end of the line and she was gone. Sam felt numb, floating in a bubble, looking for direction. His favourite shirt caught his eye again, all bunched up at the foot of the bed. He picked it up, wrung the muddy rainwater out of it and hung it to dry. 

The Goddess

Meera stood behind a row of restless relatives, fidgeting with her bangles, waiting for the bride. Her eleven year old self was drowning under layers of her mother’s heavily embroidered silk sari, the pleats threatening to fall apart any minute. She could sense the anticipation in the air. It made her fingertips tingle. Notun Bou, they called her. The new wife. 

Meera was barely two when her mother walked out of the house on an otherwise ordinary sultry afternoon, carrying a small bag stuffed with all her wedding jewellery, while she lay underneath the bed watching. She wanted to hold her back, but couldn’t call out to her as she was in the midst of a game of hide-and-seek and was afraid of being discovered. It was years later when her brother told her why she had left. Apparently her mother had a promise to keep - a promise she had made to another man; a promise far bigger than the one she had made to her children when they were born. Meera had never seen this man in her life, and since her mother never came back to the house, she assumed that he was captivatingly handsome, someone who had leapt straight out of a glossy magazine cover. Her grandmother, however, never believed that she had left for love. She thought her son’s wife was a witch. Daini, she used to call her. The new bride was supposed to take her place, and since Meera had been the only prominent female presence in the Roychowdhury household for the past decade, she wasn’t sure how to respond to this sudden and unseemly intrusion.

The house echoed with the sound of conch shells and fervent ululation as the bride made her way past the doorway. The women in the house rushed to welcome her with brass plates filled with trifles. They were supposed to be symbols of good luck and prosperity, but to Meera they meant nothing. She peered over shoulders, balancing herself painfully on her toes to catch a better glimpse of her new stepmother. She was barely in her twenties, and beside her father, she almost looked like a child. She was not very tall and was of slender built. Her face looked as if it was carved out of a betel leaf; her chin precise, almost to a point. Her skin was wheatish, and in the reflected incandescence of several flickering oil lamps she looked radiant. Her almond eyes were drawn out with kohl and her lips were pursed into a broken, tentative smile. While she stood there decked from head to toe in gold, twitching with uncertainty, her parting ablaze with a dash of vermillion, Meera realized she had never seen anyone more beautiful. People whispered audibly about how a Goddess had just made her way past the doors. If it wasn’t for a three year old child from her previous marriage, who followed her into the house clutching a ragdoll, they probably would not have hesitated to genuflect. While mother and daughter walked into the house amidst all the celebration, Meera retracted to a forgotten corner, grappling with her new found reality. She realized that she could never compete with divinity. Life as she knew it, changed in that moment. All she was left with was a raging inferno of hatred. 

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It was the last day of the autumn festivities and it was time for the Goddess to return home. Meera was cooped up in her room for the last ten days while the city lost itself in smoking dhunuchis and the rhythm of the dhak. It was not that she did not want to venture out into the streets flaunting her new clothes. But there was simply no point. No one noticed her anyway. They were too caught up in complimenting her stepmother and fussing over her wretched three-year old Mrin. Meera tried everything in her power to make them leave. She would deliberately skip lunch and complain to her father in the evening about how her stepmother intended to starve her. She would douse Mrin with water in the middle of the night, waking up her mother in the process. She would needlessly pick fights with her and later accuse her of name calling. She would even hide the infant’s feeding bottle; her helpless wailing comforted the sadist within her. But all her aggression wasted away in the face of her stepmother’s unwavering patience. It only made Meera weaker in the eyes of her father. So one day, she stopped bickering. Instead, she took refuge in passive resistance.

Every year, on the last day of the festival, Meera would visit the banks of the river to witness the immersion. It was a sort of Roychowdhury tradition. She did not want to go this time, but her father would hear nothing else. She did not speak to anyone on the way and once they reached, she stood alone on one side, avoiding eye contact with the rest. She was hoping someone would ask her what the matter was, but no one did. While she waited there, hundreds of people made their way down the slippery stairs of the embankment, carrying colossal clay images of the deity, precariously balanced on a few emaciated bamboo poles. With every concerted step, the Goddess would wobble, her ten outstretched arms waving in the wind, threatening to crush the lives out of the very people who had gathered around her to bid adieu. Meera felt someone tugging on her fingers. She looked down to see little Mrin standing next to her, with her arm raised. Her tiny eyes had deep-seated fear in them. In that moment, she felt oddly protective. She stopped battling her first instinct and squeezed her palm reassuringly. Mrin smiled widely, revealing all of her four milk teeth. Meera felt a heaviness leave her chest and she breathed in the cool autumn air once again. Together, they looked down the ghat, as the Goddess hit the river, the water making its way up the stairs. And as she sank helplessly, a horde of hungry street urchins climbed onto her breast and ripped the jewels off her neck. 

The Parasite

Sam stood there, swaddled by a soap-scented mist, peering into the mirror. He could hardly see a thing. It turned frostier by the minute, as layers of trapped vapour gathered against the surface of the glass, weaving a collage of droplets. Some were tiny specks that dotted the square, while others were heavier; their weight dragging them down, leaving behind lazy crystal trails. Someone was singing in the shower, oblivious to people waiting outside. His song was bereft of tune, but his fervor more than made up for it. Sam wiped the hazy mirror with his palm and flipped out a comb from his left pocket. He held it to the right, drawing his wet hair across the length of his forehead. Not a strand was out of place. He looked hard at his reflection, staring at himself at length, turning his head this way and that, crinkling his chin in disapproval. He thought he looked too juvenile, and decided to part his hair down the middle. The resulting symmetry only accentuated the shape of his ovoid head, which sadly wasn't his best feature. Flustered, he ran his hand through his hair carelessly, messing it up. He mulled over what to do next for a while, the decision growing increasingly impossible with every passing minute. He sighed and finally made up his mind to adhere to the disheveled look. Infact, the unkempt hair added an air of mystery to his rather boyish face.

He'd never spent so much time in front of the mirror before. The head of a fifteen year old is always awash with a host of trifles and 'hair' hardly makes for one of them. But he wanted to look fetching for Noor. She shouldn't have to feel embarrassed to be seen with him. He wondered if this is what they call love. Maybe it wasn't. But he liked her enough to put her before himself. He thought about all the movies he'd watched, where the man would bend down on his knees before his woman in the middle of a busy street, holding out a singular synthetically-red rose, while thousands bore silent witness to his proclamation of love. It appeared too saccharine on screen, and barely appealed to his teenage sensibilities. But now, it somehow all made sense. He wasn't a boy anymore. He noticed a few tiny strands on his chin, heralding the onset of manhood. He plucked them out with a tweezer, one by one. He couldn't wait to grow up.

Sam didn't know how the day ended up slipping out from between his fingers. He would stare outside the window for hours. Mr. Ward's animated reenactments of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 couldn't restrain his restless mind from wandering out into the open. A couple of crows had been patiently building a nest, laying one twig at a time, in the mighty redwood tree that stood tall just outside the classroom. You could almost reach its branches if you leaned out far enough. There were half a dozen eggs in it, he noticed. One of them strangely stood out from the pack. It had a greenish hue like the others. However, the speckled pattern on its surface looked oddly foreign; they were smaller, less clustered. There were times when a koel would visit the nest when the parents were away, forever circumspect. She would stare at that lonely egg wistfully, singing out little bird lullabies to it. She never overstayed. She knew it was one of the last times that she would see her baby. The crows would never leave the nest unattended, once the eggs hatch. Would the nestling ever recognize its mother? Would it ever get to learn her song? Sam wondered if birds felt love like humans. Maybe they understood it better.

Rishi nudged Sam from behind. It broke his trance, and he looked over his shoulder. Rishi held out a folded note for him.

"Give it to her. When you meet her that is."

And he went back to scribbling hearts at the back of his notebook. Sam opened the note, hiding it under the desk. It was meant for Noor. It said something about how he couldn't think of anything but her, and wanted nothing more but to spend some time with her after class. Sam felt a sudden rush of guilt, and stashed the note deep down his pocket. This was not the first time that Rishi wrote to Noor. He knew that Sam had grown to be friends with her over summer, and couldn't be more thrilled, for now he had a medium of reaching out to her and communicate his true emotions. He would compose childish letters on ruled pages torn out hastily from his diary, and trusted Sam to be his emissary. He never questioned him about Noor's reaction to them. He never asked him if she wrote back. He was certain that Sam would tell him if there was anything worth telling. They were friends after all, and by definition, they had no secrets.

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The discordant bell concluded another long school day, and a swarm of boys spilled out into the corridors. Sam was waiting for the arrival of this very moment, and he didn't waste anymore energy on idle small talk. Truth be told, boys his age bored him. They were mostly immature, discussing inane, puerile subjects of no possible consequence for the greater part of the day. They were loud, intrusive and didn't know the first thing about invigorating conversation. They hardly read. They couldn't care less for the arts. They bickered over football teams. They talked about browsing through pornography on the internet when their parents weren't looking. Sam was painfully aware of who he was, and he felt lost in a crowd of confused children.

"Don't forget to give it to her." Rishi called out from the distance.

Sam nodded without looking back. He tried not to think about the letter. He made his way past a myriad irrelevant faces, down the corridor and headed toward the school grounds. He was walking as fast as his legs could carry him. This was his hour of escape. This was when he felt alive. He noticed Noor standing in the distance, leaning over her easel. Sam could feel himself grinning foolishly. She was perfect, he thought. Her tresses were rolled in a bunch behind her head, a pencil holding them together. She had paint all over her skirt. Her hands were blue from the ocean on her canvas. She smelled distinctly of turpentine.

"I'm here", he said, calling out from behind her.

Startled, she turned back. The pencil fell out of her hair, and unbridled cascades came rushing down her neck up to the small of her back. She ran her hand clumsily in an effort to brush away the locks from her forehead. It left a dash of blue behind.

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It was almost after dinner, and Sam realized that he should head back to his room. He kissed Noor goodnight, and walked past the neatly trimmed hedges which smelt of dew. It was his birthday the next day, and he was expecting a huge congregation in his dorm that night. There would be bottles of alcohol smuggled in through bribed kitchen staff. There would be customary rolls of marijuana. There would be singing in loud whispers followed by traditional birthday hazing rituals. He wished Noor could be there to join in the festivities. He tiptoed past a snoring guard and crept into his dorm. The hallway seemed awfully quiet. Sam was half expecting an army of boys to jump out from the shadows when he saw someone sitting at the base of the winding staircase. It was Rishi. He was sitting with his head hung low, clutching a bundle of letters. Sam stopped in his steps.

"Rishi, is it you?," he called out.

Rishi looked up. His eyes were red from crying. There was anger brewing in them. His face was ashen with disgust. Sam's worst fears had come true.

"Where were you?" he said, his voice cracking from the strain.

Sam couldn't bring himself to reply. He felt his stomach churning inside of him. He struggled to breathe. He mumbled incoherently.

"Were you screwing her? Were you screwing my girl?", Rishi said, slowly forming the words, his voice rising. He flung the letters at Sam's crumbling face. They fell around him noisily, like a pack of cards.

"She wasn't yours. She didn't even know you." he said, averting his eyes.

"Ofcourse. And you made sure that she never did." Rishi stood up and walked towards him. His steps were small and measured. Sam knew he was going to hurt him. He was prepared. Infact he was glad that he did not have to lie to him anymore. He shut his eyes in anticipation.

But nothing happened. He opened his eyes to see Rishi leaving. He wished that he had hurt him. That way he would have had paid his dues. Bruises heal with time, the marks fade away. Its the unresolved that rattle the sturdiest foundations, widen the crevices and wreak havoc.

Rishi stopped and turned around to look at him one last time. He looked a lot older in that moment. His face was marred with disappointment.

"I thought you were different, Sam. But you turned out just like the rest of them. An ungrateful parasite." he said.

The note from the morning was still nestled deep in his pocket. It pricked him like a pesky needle.

The Aftermath

It was still dark when Meera forced her eyes open. She could have lain in bed for another couple of hours if she wanted to, but a voice inside her said that it was time to leave. She looked at the clock. It was four in the morning. Her husband would most likely be home soon. She turned to her left to see Sam sleeping by her side, his forehead devoid of wrinkles, his lips curled into a wry unconscious smile. He was probably dreaming of the ocean. Meera imagined him sitting alone by the waterfront, looking out into the endless stretch of blue tranquility that lay ahead of him, while gentle waves kissed his toes, and whispered goodbye as they melted into the sea. She looked at his boyish face long and hard, hoping to partake of that moment of bliss. But that fleeting felicity was his and his alone. She, on the other hand, had been singularly left out. 

Meera sat on the edge of the bed, looking around the room. She could tell that a man lived there. There were clothes strewn across the room, some hanging from the handles of chairs, and some crumpled in a heap on the floor. Leather shoes were paired with rubber sandals and socks were nowhere to be found. The desk had typed sheets of paper scattered all over, with no binders, no labels, and no semblance of organization. She spotted the end of her embroidered kurta peeking from underneath the stashes of paper. She wondered how it found its way to the desk, let alone be buried beneath the rubble. But it strangely didn’t seem out of place. She realized that there were no pictures on the wall. There were no framed faces peering at her, feigning familiarity. Maybe he never loved anyone enough to cling onto them. Or maybe it was just men. 

She looked at the clock again. It had only been fifteen minutes, but it almost felt like an hour. She decided to take a shower. She tried to wrap the sheet around her in an effort to leave the bed, but couldn’t. Sam was holding onto it in a death grasp. She muttered under her breath and let go of the sheet. She couldn’t afford to wake him up. After all, he looked too peaceful. Meera stood up and looked at her side of the bed. The soiled linen traced angular patterns mimicking her body – an exoskeleton reminding her of the previous night. She felt tainted and couldn’t look at it anymore. She tiptoed across and made her way to the bathroom.

Meera tried finding her way, but couldn’t see a thing inside. The geography of the room was unknown to her and the darkness wasn’t helping. She was careful to close the bathroom door behind her and switched on the light, albeit reluctantly. She found herself standing by the sink facing a mirror. She looked at the woman staring back at her, but she was unrecognizable. Her eyes were still blurry from sleep and an extended period of darkness. She squinted straight ahead, making sure that it was her she was looking at. The image had her hair in tangles. Her eyes were deep set, with shadowy circles running under them. She thought it was smudged remnants of kohl from the day before. She tried erasing them with her fingers forcefully, but they wouldn’t go. They were adamant. She stretched her arm to the side, tapping the skin beneath her elbow. The muscles were no longer as firm, and they bounced more than she would have liked. She looked down at her stomach and caressed her stretch marks longingly. There was a stitched up dent on the side, which had once been a gaping wound. And suddenly she felt violated. She looked away from the mirror and covered her breasts in shame. 

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Meera had been walking for the past hour, and she had almost reached home. The hurricane had ravaged the city and had left a deathly calm behind. There were no birds in sight. People were still holed up in their houses, some secure, sleeping peacefully in their bedrooms and some trapped under a pile of debris, afraid to start afresh. There were giant uprooted trees, stretched across the breadth of the road, resting on dented roofs and shattered windshields. Makeshift shops had been obliterated, their unsuspecting owners still on their way, harboring false hopes for a day of good business. The devastation was palpable. Meera waded in a bubble of indifference, making her way through vast stretches of human wasteland that lay on either side, her mind wandering off into the distance. 

She reached her apartment and waited for her husband to return. He might want to have some tea, she thought. She walked into the kitchen, and set some water to boil. She looked out of the window blankly. The sun was up now, and she realized she had some piled up laundry to take care off. She walked out of the kitchen, heading towards her bedroom to change, when she heard the doorbell. She stilled smelled of Sam and wanted to change first, but her visitor seemed impatient, going at the doorbell relentlessly. She roughly ironed out the creases in her shirt with her palm and opened the door. Her husband was standing there. His eyes were red. He smelt conspicuously of cheap alcohol. 

“Tea?” she said, with forced animation. 

He looked away and stumbled into the house. He muttered incoherently and Meera took it for a yes. The boiling water spilled all over the stove. It hissed like a serpent as it made its way to the floor.