Sujata Sankranti was born in the coastal state of Kerala and was educated in New Delhi.
She worked as Associate Professor in the Department of English, S.V College,
University of Delhi. She was the All-round Winner of the prestigious
Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the year 1998. She has published a volume of
short stories entitled The Warp and the Weft and other stories. Her debut novel
In the Shadow of Legends was published in 2011. Many of her short stories have
been published in journals and anthologies in India and abroad. Currently she
lives in Mumbai.
Kris Versus Krishna
Through swirling flakes of snow, as the car turned
into Austin Street he fumbled for the remote and reached for its smooth
luminous centre. The right amount of pressure…
the garage door, he was sure, had responded without any protest. The
remote in his hands empowered him. He could dictate, control and bring
distances closer.
He turned the key, pushed the door
open and peeped in.
Hi I am home. Anybody in?
His voice boomed and came back to him. Apart from the
swish and starts of the dish washer there was absolute silence. The blackboard
standing in the island of the kitchen had as many scrawls on it as the space
permitted. The round artistic handwriting of his wife, educated in a convent in
Malabar stood out against the casual irregular scribble of his daughter and son
who went to schools in Evanston
I am at Jennifer’s. Esther has come down
to arrange for the garage sale. I am helping her to catalogue Jennifer’s stuff
Oh Yes. He reminded himself, Jennifer, the old dame
from the opposite ranch house, his girlfriend as she was famously known, was no
more. Her daughter had arrived to take stock of her belongings—catalogue and
fix price tags to her precious stuff. And Devi, his wife was there to assist her.
A day in early June. Jennifer made a desperate call to
Kris. The pick-up van had failed to turn up. She wanted him to drive her down
to the soup kitchen. Until a few years ago, she used to drive around. Without
much problem. After the fall she had three winters ago, she had hardly moved
out of the house on her own.
It
was a spring morning. Jennifer made him roll down the glass. She put her head
out to look at the green shoots of the maple leaves. She told Kris again and
again she loved spring and summer. Naturally. Winter of this city of icy winds
was too much for her old brittle bones. Kris gave her the special herbal oil he
had brought from India. The oil had miraculously eased Jennifer’s knotted
joints and she nicknamed it ‘Malabar magic’ Kris had become her favourite, ever
since.
As the car sped past avenues and highways
Kris turned quizzically to the old dame. Jennifer, why do you insist on
going to the soup kitchen? You donate a huge sum every month. Is that not
enough charity service?
Oh Kris, don’t you ever talk like George and Esther`
Ladling out stew and salad to those hapless crowd, watching them enjoy every
bite and every gulp. Don’t you think it is much more satisfying than signing
away lifeless cheques?
She bowed before an old man, ruffled a
youngster’s unruly hair. Coaxed someone to eat a little more. And the ecstatic
looks on her face! It was mesmerizing. The glint of Jennifer’s irises, a
curious blue stood out against her papery white face and Kris felt as though he
was crystal-gazing
x xx
Amma’s
face tired but excited as he saw her for the last time in their ancestral house
flashed before him. She had insisted on getting out of her sick bed to watch
the annadanam, poor feeding which was a yearly ritual of the family. Kris
wrapped her in her favourite red blanket and. carried her to the courtyard and
made her sit in the easy chair.
Don’t pamper her Unni She is too week. And there is a
cold wind blowing If she sits in the courtyard, she will catch a cold. As it is,
she is asthmatic You will not have to take care of her. You come like a guest
and will be off in a day.
His
sisters had protested. Why did they
have to remind him with such vicious pleasure that he had failed in his duty
towards their mother?
Unni, the whole village waits anxiously for this
yearly event. The milk payasam of our cook is their favourite. Give a little
more rice to that boy sitting in the corner. And give some pickle to those
women at the far end.
Kris was
moved at her palpable concern for the poor folk
Yes.
There is no end to her wishes Not just annadanam she is planning to give a
godanam now. Does she have any idea how much a cow will cost.
Kris
ignored his sister’s taunt
He
had left the estate, the ancestral house and most of mother’s belongings to the
sisters. Had brought back with him only the leather-bound copy of her Ramayana
and the wooden stand on which she used to keep it.
Jennifer used to complain to Kris
about her children’s utter indifference to the artefacts she had collected. The
laquerd jewel box from Burma, the spider lantern from Venice…. each one of those
rare pieces was for her a sacred memory. But to Esther who had majored in
Psychology it was just hoarding syndrome.
Jennifer had asked Kris to take whatever he liked from her collections.
But he couldn’t bring himself to touch any of her treasures At last when
Jennifer insisted that he should take something from her as a token of love he
had agreed to accept her Bible, which he knew she was in the habit of reading
every day. She left it for him with the peacock feather he had presented her
once, placed as a bookmark on the Book of Job. On the top shelf of his bedroom
closet he had reverently put it away along with his mother’s Ramayana.
With the fourth peg of whiskey Kris
had grown groggy-eyed and lethargic. Like a robot he propelled himself to the
black board. Picked up the pink rayon and willed his right hand across the
board. Just below where Perry had scrawled, Jennifer’s chess board is for me
and the oval mirror is for Molly, he wrote.
Prasanna, not Perry, Malavika, not Molly, mark
my words. You are not going to take
anything from Jennifer and Shri devi, get in touch with the travel agent, we
are returning to India.
Through blurred eyes he peered at
the black board. The letters swam in front of him. But his distant vision was
getting clearer. He could see Amma not as he saw her last withered and wasted.
She was sitting in front of the kitchen churning curds into hillocks of butter.
He could hear her calling out to him in her sing-song voice.
My
little Krishna. Unni Krishna.
Come
fast
Let me feed you butter. As big as an elephant’s head….
The hyphen gathers new meaning in this wonderfully dramatized agony of divided existence. Kudos to Sujata Sankranti's magical creative comment on the troubling binary. And the title of the story absolutely nails it!
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