The Tree

The tree’s branches fanned out like exaggeratedly knuckled, seeking fingers rising from a grave. And that was appropriate because the tree was almost dead and sinking in ivy. It was probably one of the first few trees to have ever been planted in the garden and I loved it, but I don’t remember its species. It was completely dry, and the ivy swaddling it was lush and leafy, giving the impression of evergreen life. As a cruel joke, someone had hung a terracotta bird house on one of its decaying branches.

Just as the sun began to set and the deadly hot afternoon wind was out of the way, I jerked my hand out of my mother’s grasp and, once again, ran out into the garden in my underwear. Kanpur was exceedingly warm in the summer of 1988 and I had, even at age four, come to the profound realization that clothes were an unnecessary waste of energy.

Round and round he chased me. We must have circled the tree at least fifteen times that day. There was a gentle evening breeze mixing the jasmine-y scent of the garden with the tarry smoke rising from beyond the boundary wall—the broken glass on it could keep out most things except the smoke and the noise.

Being around ten years older, he seemed to me to be a grown-up. I was thrilled that he wanted to play with insignificant little me. I was delighted at the attention. We ran and laughed and laughed and ran all evening, as we had so many other times. He had a special way of signaling that play time was over: he would laughingly pounce on me and start tickling me with a desperation. My skin could tell that it was a different kind of touch. He would touch my arm but something between my legs would feel weird. There was a smell to him – a mixture of cow-dung smoke, stale food and dirty clothes, it was the same smell that came from his mother, who was the main help at the house.

After the tickle session he took me by the hand to what was called the “servants’ quarters.”My heart raced; my parents would be livid if they knew the number of times I had been there.

I had involuntarily gagged the first time I entered the tiny room he shared with his family. The floor to ceiling chaos of that dark and dingy room had been new to me. Sarees, some that I recognized as my mother’s old ones, were used for everything from drapes to sheets. Shirts, trousers, underclothes, all kinds of multi-colored garments padded the room from any outside disturbance and gave the room an intense intimacy.

That evening, again, he sat me down on the jute khatiya covered with a thin mattress stitched between two sarees, and gently caressed my arms and tummy. He asked me to lie down, which I immediately, obediently, did; then amidst the darkness and the smells, I felt something knobby, something fleshy brush against me. At this point my mind always became an impressionistic sieve. All details, all sense of real time and space passed through to reveal pure feeling. Hands pulling down my underwear, touching places that should not be touched. Then that knobby, fleshy thing. Two mysterious parts of our bodies. The heated rub of the knobby, fleshy thing.

I remember that grown-up, sweaty face peering into mine, asking me whether I liked it. I nodded my assent, like I was used to doing for everything. I had been taught to appreciate everything that was offered. Finally, it was time to pull up my underwear, return to the tree in the garden, and continue playing till I was called for dinner. But I didn’t really know whether I wanted to leave or stay in that jumble of smelly sarees a little longer. The darkness, the rubbing, the fleeting leap out of the confines of my tiny body.

 

The Courtyard

The courtyard was surrounded by round, shimmery mosaic columns of dark green and red. They sang of my grandfather’s meteoric success and stood in direct contrast to our own rather ordinary existence. We were vassals in service of and extremely grateful to the living, breathing bangala, whose heart was the courtyard and whose arteries were those mosaic columns. A sacred Tulsi plant stood right in the center; its sharp, pungent leaves were profound in their bitter tastiness.

In the exam hall, I raised my five-year-old hands at every tray of goodies that went by, having completely ceased to persist with the exam paper in front of me. I had never seen so much candy and chocolate in one place before, and it was free for the taking. Most schools in our city held competitive entrance exams to sift out the true gems from the dullards, but this school had devised a unique test of willpower and focus by offering kids candy every five minutes. All the others relentlessly scribbled in their papers, never looking up for dear life, while I calmly put my pencil down and concentrated solely on stopping every amused waiter who passed me. I collected as much candy as I possibly could in that hour and a half.

My pockets bulging, my satchel heavier, and my sparkle a little dimmed for those watching, I walked out of that exam hall happier than I ever remember feeling again as a child. I wouldn’t say that I came crashing down, but I was slowly and surely lowered to the rigid, unyielding ground by my mother who was waiting for me outside, wearing a beautiful blue chiffon saree.

When we got home, I sat on the floor of the symmetrically columned courtyard and turned my satchel upside down, enjoying a quick and noisy candy rain. My mother sat on a chair, observing me. I arranged all the candy according to the color of their wrappers and proudly showed her the loot. She looked at the candy, then looked back at me, and suddenly it all became clear. Her large eyes, on either side of the bindi on her forehead, were defeat and failure explicit. I had not passed the entrance exam.

Defeat and failure have since become my lifelong friends, needing no introduction, no preamble; their stinging familiarity is immediate. She got up to leave and there were no words spoken. I was left alone in the courtyard to enjoy my neatly arranged candy in peace, among the singing mosaic columns that continued pumping that invisible blood, keeping the house alive.

Staring at those beautiful columns, I turned from five to fourteen. Just like candy, my aunt’s kicks and blows came down like rain too. I reeled with a delicious, well-known pain that seeped inside my body through my skin.

She was teaching me mathematics. And I had thought it a waste of time to actually do the hard sum, when I could as easily copy it from the reverse page. I was found out, and my aunt channelled years of frustration in her rage that day. Unbridled rage continues to be the usual mode of communication for the many who grew up in that house.

I wriggled back to my room while my aunt withdrew to her own. My sense of self was insignificant and sometimes invisible, so this kind of regular shaking did it good. It was forced to come out of hiding—raw, bleeding and blistered—and make its sloppy presence felt.

As I growled and cried in my room, something strange happened. My aunt received a phone call. These were old-fashioned, black and clunky rotary instruments. According to her, when she picked up the phone a female on the other end began abruptly abusing her with the choicest, juiciest Hindi epithets, saali-kutiya haramzaadi – bloody bitch bastard– before simply hanging up.

My aunt suspected me of having made the call with my parents’ phone. But I hadn’t. I was too timid for such a thing. But, to be honest, I still wonder whether that raw, bleeding, blistered, sloppy, wriggly self gets up to things without my knowing sometimes.

 

The Terrace

The terrace was the serene top of the house. It absorbed all the rampant energy from downstairs, and looked on to the garden and the busy main road. Vast and tranquil, we went there alone or in twos for quiet reflections or heart to hearts. As a seventeen-year-old student of music, I used to go there often and attempt to sing some beautiful raga learned in school or a maudlin Bollywood song stuck in my head, moving my hands wildly like an accomplished classical singer. I also used to talk to myself there, loudly and without inhibition, and I’m sure other people in the family did too. The terrace was freeing; you could go there when it became hard to breathe downstairs.

There used be one special occasion when all of us would have to gather there together, at the same time. This was the all-too-frequent Kanpur power-cut.

I was just about to enter deep sleep one night, listening to the reassuring sound of the ceiling fan – that not only provided some dubious relief from the sweltering heat but also dispersed the mosquitos that were forever circling above our bodies, waiting for a moment of stillness to strike. This moment was faithfully provided to them that night, like many other nights that month, gift wrapped, by those managing the electricity grid in our area.

My heart sank as the sound of the fan died. A moment later a deafening symphony of ravenous mosquitos attacked my ears. I, along with everyone else in the house, gave it fifteen minutes, slapping our arms and legs and faces in repetition. Then I heard someone tiptoeing on the stairs, and I knew that there was no way around it, if I wanted even a couple of hours of rest that night I would have to trudge up to the terrace.

We all climbed the stairs, one after the other, half asleep, each carrying our own mats and pillows. The hope was that the breeze on the terrace would both alleviate the heat under our skins and help destabilize the mosquitos. None of which was really going to happen because it was a still night. I suspected that those in charge especially chose still nights, just so we could all feel truly grateful for the times that we had electricity.

In our desperate hope we spread out our beddings and quickly lay down with only thin sheets separating us from the insect-ridden elements.

Everybody slept out of exhaustion, except me. In the utter darkness, the sky presented an endless platter of shiny, misshapen silvery coins. I covered myself completely with my sheet, only my eyes peeped out, looking up at the stars.

And slowly, as I stared, one of those brilliant stars started to move and flash yellow, pink, purple, all sorts of different colors. I told myself that it was an airplane, but it really did not seem like one. I sat up. Squinting and focusing hard, I noticed that the thing had a tiny silhouette shaped like a spinning top. The lights were arranged around it in a belt that kept flashing colors I had never seen on any air or land-craft before. I watched the spinning top travel from one end of the sky to the other, refusing to blink till it had completely vanished in the darkness. After it had gone, I nudged my mother to share my excitement, but that only resulted in louder snores. I lay back and continued to search the sky for another spinning top. I looked and looked, and at some point during that search I started to doze.

And just as I was about to fall asleep, there was a loud but gentle thump, indicating that the power had returned. My elation made me forget all about the spinning top for the night. All of us got up quickly, rolled up our beddings and ran downstairs. I lay in my blessed bed again, under the blessed fan again.