Written by Sarghi Edited by Anjini
Illustrated by Shravan Bakkiyaraj
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Her clinking gold bangles resurfaced from the warm fort of blankets, as she switched the alarm off. Never did I ever, even in a half-conscious daze, hear her snooze the alarm twice. A sigh, a whooshing of sheets and there stood my Ammi, still clad in the brittle shawl of sleep, running her fingers through my hair, starting the day before I could still comprehend my existence.
“ Beta, come here and help me choose a shirt,” Abbu’s voice would call out. Carrying the splendour I think ancient, white marble in our beloved Taj Mahal does, he would ask if the blue one looked better or the brown one. Stern, but soft. Beautiful, flowing with both the orotund authority of being a professor, and the chirpy notes of a loving, dear father.
“Professor”, they would say. Reverently, with an eager air to please, as I watched my mother, dressed in a perfectly ironed, creaseless saree, glasses on her forehead and the click-clacking of her heels as she walked authoritatively, to her class. Sweat gleaming, hair sticking to her forehead, a book in hand often fanning herself, was how she would walk out of the class.
Echoes. Of laughter, of answers and choruses were music to my ears, as often I would go visit her at her university. Sometimes smiling, other times anxious at her students’ behaviour, she would draw her eyebrows high, a faint shadow of surprise on her pretty face like a sunrise at the Himalayas, old and timeless in the same instance. It was often lying down at night, I would examine her sunken cheeks, her skin forming a trail for my fingers to trace, which I knew time and time would only deepen.
The hot 4 o’clock June sun, shining on my back, as I would impatiently wait for the same honk-honk over and over again, everyday. To rush to the door, and be swept off my feet by Abbu. Looking back at those times, I smile contentedly, that driving from another city, his shirt crumpled, his bag dropped lazily over his shoulder, his eyes lined with the tired weariness of the answer sheets in his hand he still had to read, his face would light up, his moustache forming a crooked smile as he would whisk me up in his arms, his tiredness, worry and hunger, all forgotten.
Often, at dinner table, when we all sat down, the tantalising smell of ghee and tadka challenging me to start before Ammi was done with the chores, a contented smile on both their faces, as they would ask me about my day. From there, this table would pass motions on Plato’s Utopia, and Ammi would smile knowingly as I asked for a third helping of the sabzi, my confused stomach still trying to digest her interpretation of “Waiting for Godot” with too much food in it. There was always space for dessert, mind you.
At times when I visited Abbu, in his classroom, I would be stunned at the momentary collision of my worlds- for in the class, stood my father, a book in hand, his tall silhouette shadowing the bleached floor, where he spoke like a scholar, his voice rising and falling, his eyes burning with a fervour as he got lost in that classroom. Every time he walked out of one, his breathing a little shagged, he would look at me hopefully, his hand protectively caressing my head, and say, “Don’t tell your mother but let’s go get ice cream.” He would always remember my order and we would finish it sitting in the car, watching the sun go down, the fading sunlight kissing his cheeks.
I would hear them talking in the flower patches, where Ammi would conjure green tea from scratch sometimes and they would sit, fire ablaze, talking in hushed tongues, stars blinking in the January sky. It was in those little moments, call them silent or deafening, that I would resort to my own, tiny shell of thoughts. I have a play to read, a book to do my homework on, that paper from biology my teacher told me to rewrite, my next trip to the bookstore, what I would get in lunch tomorrow and hoping my uniform wasn’t too messy coz I forgot to iron it. In the back of my head, another voice- giving me answers, Ask Ammi, she’ll help you read it. Abbu knows when the next book fest is, or- knowing that I would always wake up to clean, neat uniform waiting for me, the faint scent of Ammi’s perfume lingering in the air. Her alarm was never snoozed.
It was one of those times, when I heard them talking, my tippy toes trying to be as sneaky as I could. Hiding in the shadows, I listened, feeling accomplished on not having been caught. My ear pressed to an imaginary wall, the cold air stung my nose as Abbu’s voice grew, “ you worry too much, love. We still have time, and when we retire, the world won’t end.”
Ammi sighed, “I know it won’t. It’s just the thought of not being me, you know? Not walking down those hallways, or sitting in the sun outside my classroom? But I guess that’s how life is, isn’t it? One day we are glorified gods, preachers and pillars of society, and the moment we retire, it won’t be the same, will it. No prospect of living an independent old age, isn’t it ? All these years of ‘bringing up the nation’ and the moment it all ends, all we have is an appreciation letter and an account closing statement. No pensions, no security and few sincere goodbyes.”
There was a pause. Footsteps. The rustling of Abbu’s shawl, as he wrapped my mother in a hug, “You’ve had a long day. Let me get you to bed,” he gently wrapped the blanket around her as they came in. My heart thumping, I ran to the bed, pretending to sleep, my blood racing. “ s she warm enough? Should I close the window?” Abbu’s conscious voice asked Ammi. Her breath fanning over my face “no, let it be open.”
I hear the light switch go off. Abbu’s soft voice, from one side of the bed, called out to her.
“My love?”
“Yes?”
“Does time scare you?”
“A little.”
Abbu laughed, a little saddened. “Maybe when we’re old and grumpy, you won’t have to wear the sarees you always complain about. And maybe, I won’t have to go to a different city everyday.”
Silence.
“And you could snooze your alarm.”
I don’t know if it was silent, or deafening.
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