My round belly fell on two rows of anklets that were chiselled fine to produce a charming floral pattern; my broad foot spread around me like a fish fin; I had no toes to speak of. Over the tapering belly thickly varnished in green, was a lovely bend of the neck that billowed out evenly like the wrinkled gathering of folds on an old lady’s skin; on the crown were the lintels of the roof. I and my pillar partner carried overhead, the roof under which a lovely lady was born the afternoon of 1968 February the 5th. The story that I am about to narrate begins in my royal past and ends here; I am felled now.
Of the seven siblings that lived in the house at the time, the youngest, Janaki, was affected the most by the news. She was about thirty then, her two children were jewels themselves; Janaki was a woman associated with social appetite, thoroughly enjoyable conversationalist and reverential figure in the family. Before me, two sticks were laid out in a cross; edges burnt to indicate a death in home. Mother’s funeral came as a shock to many in the family; her health showed signs of recovery when the last time whole family met for Diwali. That morning, Janaki received a phone call from the bungalow; just that her mother’s health was fast deteriorating. As she sat aboard the bus, she was confronted by other members of the family making the harrowing trip; it was to take about three hours. Janaki assumed that the call was meant to warn the family members of a likely demise in the coming days; others, the elders knew what it really meant - that the sad demise must have occurred sometime early in the morning hours. I was ten in the morning when they made it to the bungalow.
That night, a devastated Janaki sat by my side just as she did on several occasions in the past. With the sullen head propped against my thickly varnished coat, she fixed her gaze at her son before her. The kids were too young to be bothered by the heartrending time their parents were going through; the boys were playing cricket and the girls were collecting guava fruits under the old tree in the compound. The compound wall was guarded by a gate that had come loose from its hinges and sank into the ground creasing the ground beneath it in a wide arch every single time someone opened it. It was a heavy gate, its metal frame corroded through which the pigs from adjoining canal gained access; with bruised bodies and snot covered nostrils, they surveyed the surroundings until someone shooed them out, often with a sharp stone. The canal gave vent to the town’s drainage; an open sewer, it revolted everyone now. Back in the days of glory; it twinkled its dark skin at night as starlight punctured it melodiously; its water gushed sinuously over slippery rocks and through surreptitious bends on the bed full of clear angelic sand. Gradually, the starlight grew weary and the puncturing discreet. Now, one has to approach the horror of civilization’s masterful work with a raised hand and the bridge of nose between thumb and index fingers.
I distinctly remember the day Janaki was engaged to get married; she grabbed me dolefully into her embrace and squealed like a rat that had been caught. Only sixteen, frail boned, underweight, slender arms and pitted stomach; her girly frame had still not developed bosoms worthy of a man’s admiration. I sacredly preserved the smudges of her tears that fell on my jewelled feet for a long time until I was varnished again. They tore apart the fingers of both hands that Janaki joined behind my back “your father is dead, your brothers have a life of their own, and I am of no use to you. You are to make the new home yours for good” her mother explained to the girl who denied letting the marriage suck her away from me. The day ended with a handsome young man in pleated tailor made trousers accepting her hand in marriage; tall and narrow chested, in his early twenties, the man was a law graduate and the marriage, everyone proclaimed was a great success already.
In my steady gaze over the years, I have witnessed the wide mouthed well in the compound turn into a tube well; the bucket with a hole on its base was pulled hard to the surface over a small pulley that creaked under the weight. The handheld rope was tied into knots over the length to recover a mistimed tug of the bucket; a tight fist over one of the knots behind, as the rope snaked through the wet grip of the hands, saved another long wait. During winters, the wooden roof I was crowned with, swelled in pain of carrying water overhead; damp mud walls around me bloated in obeisance; rough slates of rock beneath me turned green with algae; and rats squirmed their way through the house gallantly.
21st century for me was as harrowing as for any bungalow in the town. The serpentine head ensconced overhead between me and my partner struck a caustic gaze; two of its nine serpentine heads dropped with a thud to the floor between us, someone in the family was hurt in the accident. Familial differences between the brothers led to raising a wall between me and my partner. Once a joint family, now a layer of bricks cemented haphazardly and hurriedly, stood between us two pillar partners; the majestic porch that we shared between our aquatic feet was now reduced to a diminutive pathway through which one strolled merely to crouch in the corners of dilapidated rooms behind.
Diwalis and dusheras were now as bleak and dishonest as the innumerable stars that provoked poets at night; the windowless inhabitants of the rooms behind, nursed their wounds of sorrow. Occasionally, Janaki visited her once maternal home; I could spot her voice from a distance as she slapped the muddy ground on the bend ten feet away. I longed for the touch of her comforting hand as she rested the slippers against my fin shaped foot. She was living in Hyderabad, her children had attained adulthood. Her visits - festivals and occasional family gatherings – grew mercilessly meagre at a time when I needed her the most; my green varnish flopped to the floor before me, exposing the scaly brown skin.
I cast a lonely ghoulish shadow in the mornings; the lovely interference pattern was a thing of past - only Venus remained in the mornings, stars are all gone. And I was felled last year, Janaki is in her early forties now; her son would remember me as a close acquaintance of his mother’s with whom, in her childish unworldly days, she proffered memories that I had clung to the end of my days.
The close reality of a glowing yellow ball of fire can never replace the longing curiosity of countless twinkling stars however distant and unfathomable they may be. Irony of mornings is that they never are bright; it’s the nights that lit our minds with enigmatic wanderings about the rug of cosmic bereavement; how lonely, deprived, helpless and innocent we are.
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