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| Sonia Dogra |
Sonia Dogra
Amma squats down in front of the vendor and brings the rai close to her nose. ‘Ten rupees for this?’ Her voice cuts through the cacophony of the mandi. ‘Umm… I’ll give you five.’
‘Na, na…’ The boy shakes his head, taking the bundle back from her hand.
Gorakhpur Chowk is like a hot tawa today. Amma’s back is drenched and sweat rains down her neck, but the shopping spree doesn’t end. She picks up the rai once again, feeling its soft leaves between her fingers. ‘Seven, not a penny more.’ She grabs two bundles, stuffs them in her bag and stands up.
‘Arre Mataji…’ The vendor’s face falls. He turns to me. ‘Didi!’
‘Come on, it’s only ten rupees. Don’t create a fuss,’ I speak through gritted teeth and withdraw two crisp notes from my pocket. Amma pushes my hand away, moving between the vendor and me. I stare at her burly back, a testament to her Pahadi roots. But it’s not just her muscular frame that catches my attention. It is the way she squares her broad shoulders even at the ripe age of sixty. A quiet manifestation of the brick wall she has become.
‘Only this time.’ Amma raises her voice over that of other haggling customers. She slides her hand inside her blouse and retrieves a tiny brown purse. ‘I am going to pay you seven for a bunch. Look, I’m not a city dweller. You can’t fool me. I know how these leaves run amok in the hills. So what, if I can’t grow them in my 2BHK?’
The young boy looks at her as if he has been assaulted. ‘Only for three rupees, Amma?’
‘Wahi toh, why make this face only for three rupees? Take five and five and…’ She peeps into her purse, ‘Chalo… another five! Happy?’ Amma puts the money in his basket, gathers her bags and walks off.
I scamper behind her after muttering apologies to the boy. The honking cars and Tuk-tuks rush past me. Amma is leaping with enthusiasm. I try to catch up.
We’ve visited every second shop in Gorakhpur this afternoon, purchasing cotton saris, salwar suits, cotton bed-sheets, groceries, and now, rai.
‘Amma! What’s the hurry?’ I cry out.
She turns, points to the rai and grins, her missing front tooth a reminder of the day she had accidentally fallen down. Her eyes gleam, even from a distance.
Who is this new Amma, this stranger in the garb of my mother? Her latest avatar confounds both Golu and me.
I am the one more affected, because my brother has long flown the nest. As children, we saw Amma merge like a shadow with the backdrop of our home in the imposing presence of Baba. With our father now gone, the apparent ordinariness of Amma’s personality has become fraught with a restless energy. A slow, but sure transition, over the last two months.
Amma stops to rest on a weathered concrete block by the roadside, near the gates of Shikshak Colony. I drag my feet to join her.
‘This world has become worthless with wild leaves being sold for the price of gold,’ she says, shifting her weight and sweeping the other half of the block with her pallu for me. ‘Good for your father, he isn’t alive to see this. Tsk.’
A gentle breeze blows across our faces, bringing with it the sweet fragrance of sal and guava trees that line the colony. Amma closes her eyes and draws a long breath.
I’d just started university when Baba retired from the post of senior secondary teacher and chose Doon valley as home for his declining years. He nurtured a deep desire to settle in Shikshak Colony and enjoy the perks of a government pension. However, this wasn’t the dream Amma cherished. She followed him through their married years, navigating the complexities of city life, trying to fit into a puzzle she couldn’t understand.
When we first visited the house while it was still under construction, she said to me, ‘It’s nice here with the trees. Do we have a garden? No! Not even a stream nearby, huh?’ Then she sat quietly while Baba discussed the interiors at length.
Amma’s silence on that day knocked me in the pit of my stomach. Having crossed the threshold of adulthood by then, I was exploring life through literature and books, and thriving in a world vastly different from my growing years. I could run my fingers over the obscure fissures in my parents’ relationship that had previously blended with the background. A war was taking shape within me.
One evening, I came armed to the dinner table. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘Amma’s wish is just as important.’
Baba broke a large piece of roti and dipped it in dal. ‘No rai for dinner tonight, Leelo?’
The lilt in ‘Leelo’ was unmistakable.
I looked at my mother. She straightened her sari, picked a bowl from the adjoining table and placed a generous heap of greens on Baba’s plate. Her display of affection annoyed me.
I gazed into Baba’s eyes. ‘This house needs a democratic setup.’
He cleared his throat. ‘Leelo, you’re the queen of this kitchen. Let nobody think otherwise.’ A loud belch followed.
The invisible crown was adjusted. Amma turned to me. ‘Neelu, you’re lucky to go to college. My father didn’t let me get past class five.’
This was it. The following morning, I set off for university, acknowledging that my mother had accepted the bait with joy, but something else sat sharp upon my heart—a harsh truth. My father had made sure I could study, while my cousins and friends had been forced into early marriages, their dreams nipped in the bud. Girl, lucky girl, you who have the privilege to read, why must you talk of equality?
The ambivalence of relationships wasn’t lost on me. I swayed between forgiveness and bitterness. Three years after his retirement, Baba succumbed to neglected diabetes. His long-planned enjoyment fell onto my mother’s lap—she inherited his pension and the house. Amma embraced the bittersweet inheritance and I came to live with her, working as an ad-hoc lecturer in the valley.
This morning, Amma received the first family pension in her name. She signed in her crooked handwriting. ‘Your good father worked all his life to give it away in the end. Such are the ways of the world. Tsk,’ she said, as a wry smile settled on her lips.
*
The sound of running water fills the kitchen as Amma places the rai leaves in the sink. They have a crisp aroma, like a morning after a rainy night. ‘You must wash them well to get rid of the traces of mud. Your father detested the gritty texture between his teeth.’
As a Pahadi, I swore my allegiance to leafy vegetables at birth, especially to rai. So, Amma’s instruction manual popping out of the blue feels weird.
I pick up the dripping leaves from the sink and place them on the slab. Amma gathers a handful and starts chopping. ‘It was my favourite. Gather the best leaves, wash them, pour kachcha mustard oil, throw in the jakhya, wait for it to pop…’ she says, opening her mouth like a fish. ‘This,’ she points to the rai with her chin jutting out, ‘was my craving when I was carrying Golu.’
She pauses. I move closer to her. Amma stares past me out of the window. ‘The memory of that pregnancy is still heavy in my heart.’
Golu charted a life for himself long before Baba’s passing—choosing hostel over home first, and a big, metro city later. He inherited our father’s genes, and possibly his recklessness. Or aloofness.
‘But you love Golu!’
‘Of course! So what if he’s forgotten me today? It was Golu who ensured they didn’t marry off your father a second time for a son.’
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And what if Golu had been Goli?’
‘Who knows!’ She chuckles. ‘Back in those days, I had a small kitchen garden in my backyard.’
For as long as I remember, we’ve never had a garden or even potted plants in any of our homes. Most of the flats where we lived were one or two rooms, with a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. In my memories Amma only did household chores, not gardening, and Baba made trips to the market or to school picnics or read the paper.
Amma pulls out an iron wok from under a stack of karahis and pours mustard oil into it.
‘Is this new?’ I ask.
‘Are you a stranger in this house? It’s ages old. It gives a distinct flavour to rai.’ Amma traces the edge of the wok with her fingers. ‘The last time I cooked in it was in the seventh month, back in the hills. I’d picked a handful of rai for lunch.’
The fumes of hot oil fill the kitchen and irritate my eyes. Amma throws in the spices. ‘Back then, this smell made me sick,’ she says, coughing.
I turn on the exhaust fan. Amma gathers the finely chopped rai and transfers it into the wok. ‘Wait for the dancing seeds to calm down before adding the rai. Tricks of the trade!’ She winks. ‘Trust me, it was not easy to hold back the surging bile. But if not me, who would have made my favourite sabzi?’ she says, sniffing.
I open my mouth to answer but Amma has already gauged my question. ‘Your baba? He couldn’t even make chai.’
The salt goes in next. Amma doesn’t use a spoon. Two fingers and a thumb do the trick for her. ‘You need to be careful with the salt. Even a tad too much can be too much.’
I clutch my stomach. ‘How long, Amma? My tummy needs more than just cooking instructions.’
‘Bas.’ She laughs, and begins to roll out rotis.
Finally, we sit down to savour the fruits of Amma’s labour—the strong and bitter flavour of mustard balanced by the more base and saline taste of rai. This staple dish has never tasted so exquisite.
I look at my mother as she piles some rai onto a large piece of roti and devours it in one go. Then, runs her index finger over the sabzi and licks it with a loud smack. When did I last see her enjoy a meal like this? Not in my recollection of the times we’ve eaten together – four or five – in twenty-five years. As she finishes the last bite, Amma lifts the brass plate to her mouth and moves her tongue over the remaining scraps.
I wait for her to finish. ‘This was delicious, Amma. Thank you!’
Amma closes her eyes. ‘That afternoon, I was barely done with cooking rai, when your father returned from work. Bas. I started rolling out rotis one after another, and he kept eating until the wok… this wok, was sparkling clean once again. Eighteen rotis for him that day. Two for me, and some salt to go with it. The sight of that last morsel in his hand sweeping the oil stuck around the edges never left me.’ She smiles through trembling lips. A tiny green piece is wedged between her teeth.
I watch as her eyes fill up with an ocean of brine and a rivulet escapes them. She lifts her pallu, and covers her face. A heavy silence settles between us. I stare fixedly at the table. It is after a while that Amma breaks through the stillness, her voice cracking, ‘Thank the lord, Neelu, if your baba was here today…’ She lets out a sigh. ‘But then... also thank the lord for the pension he’s left in my name, haina? Because, as you know, in the city, a bunch of rai costs a fortune!’
Laughter fills the room as I reach out and hold fast to Amma’s hand.
*
This story really resonates with me especially the licking the platter clean which is what I do at 67! I find it amusing though that the narrator considers 67 to be old ( Of course as a 20 yo I too thought 60 was having one foot in the grave). Tight narrative that holds the reader's interest to the very end. You use of Hindi words makes the story more endearing and authentic.
ReplyDeleteAhh! Very nice indeed. You took me to India with this one, Sonia. The smells, the tastes, the sounds..
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