She sat alone in the car, mopping tears that sprang when she heard those lines.
“Every place I go, I think of you; Every song I sing, I sing for you.”
Then she busied herself tidying up her face. Wiped clean, sniffle-free, composed.
Wicked stepmothers can’t be seen missing little souls not born of them.
….revolves around an ivory leather couch. And a dutifully vacuumed beige carpet. Around a sweet-smelling fruit basket and an oven bubbling with cheese. Around a shared silver car and welcome home kisses. Sherlock Holmes episodes at night and the polite chirping of robins by day.
Life in California revolves around rattan chairs and a white table. Scented candles and sunflowers in a blue vase. Around the warmth of family, a clutch of friends and a cat that eyes me with minimal interest.
Life in California is the goodness of home cooking, lavender in a yellow planter, mildly scented laundry and red Netflix envelopes. French coconut pie, lemons in iced water, shimmering peach gloss and aroma oils. A merging of rhythms, the strains of Sinatra, wide open spaces and Mexican dancing.
Life in California is the technology buzz, swirls of innovation, the thick of things. The beautiful Valley and Mt. Diablo and sting of the cold Pacific on browning skin. Sareed aunties and baby booms and fresh bhel, bhature, bhungra around the nook. Sunshine and summer and chilly evenings; poolside and wifi and stacks of free books.
Life in California is an exhaled breath, a winding down, that feeling of calm. Cherishing people, valuing life, savoring a hard-fought way of being. Counting one’s blessings, praying daily and dangling an evil eye talisman in every reader’s face.
Then comes one downpour in the city of my heart and the fickle spirit turns traitor again.
I heard her before I saw her. A loud, hoarse voice screaming expletives that would make a sailor blush. If you knew the busy street my parents’ home is on, you would be awed by the power of her lungs. She is crass, she is angry, and simply known as the not-so-friendly neighborhood crazy.
Back in the day when my parents were teenagers, hanging out with their ‘gang’ of 30 and going for summer swims to the Golwala pool, Daisy B. was a stunning young thing in her early twenties, with permed hair, immaculate make-up and outfits to die for. The boys wanted her and the girls wanted to be her. And admirers never left her vicinity. Dressed to the nines and aware of her power over the opposite sex, she led a life of promiscuous abandon, going through several lovers, brazenly flaunting her sugar daddies and breaking homes and marriages with nary a care. Talk of how men’s brains would turn to putty at a mere glance from her and how she could get any man to do her bidding abounded and provided the neighbors with much fodder for gossip.
Of course, for the old families who continue to live in our neighborhood (mine included), it was all her fault and no good was going to come of a used girl who refused to settle. She’s lucky to be Parsi, Jeroo said, rolling her eyes heavenward at her own fabulous fortune, or else she’d have been arranged-marriaged off, like those Hindoos do all the time. Would’ve done her good, retorted Tehmina, to have a husband keep her in check, quite forgetting that her own Edulji wouldn’t venture any such thing with his opinionated wife. In a community of eccentric people, aberrations are more easily overlooked and Daisy B. went about her wild life without samaj, biradri or similar Hindi film constructs pointing their accusing fingers at her existence.
A generation grew up. And then another. And one evening in the year 2010, a loud, hoarse voice, screaming expletives that would make a sailor blush, rose above the roar of rush-hour traffic and floated into my fourth-floor bedroom. There she was, a now-wrinkled woman with golden-brown curls, suggestively gesticulating toward her nether regions and screaming bloody murder at a man she accused of looking at her. I retreated from my balcony, shaken by the hysteria in her voice, and tried to focus on other things. A week later, there was that voice again, railing against a world that was out to group-fornicate with her.
The episodes began occurring with alarming frequency and she would rant and rave and verbally target anybody on the street, regardless of age or gender. I (and half my zip code) was informed that I have ‘false boobsies’ while on my way to a workout. A passerby was almost beaten up because a group of men on the street believed she had been genuinely molested. People would stop and stare. Some men would scurry past, afraid to be implicated for merely being on the road home. Some would yell back. Most would just be stunned into silence by the lady in the frilly nightgown, who bought Coke and bread from the local vendor before turning on him viciously.
Efforts to reach out and help came to nought. Between my mum and I, we tried a social worker, relatives and a trustee of the Bombay Parsee Punchayet, but nobody wanted to get involved. I’m not sure how many of you know that a large part of my education and work experience has been in the mental health field, and it pained me to see someone so direly in need of help. Daisy B. lives alone now, after her mother passed away. Relatives and neighbors claim she was cruel to her and this madness is the cross she has to bear. Nobody is willing to entertain the notion that she may have acted in a harsh manner because of her illness. My cousin who lives in the neighborhood confirms that her behavior has expanded to screaming in buses and glaring at anyone she pleases, all the while going about her daily business. On some days, she is calm, walks quietly down the street, dressed up like the old times. She has no immediate family and nobody who can step in to help. Everybody I spoke with says she’ll only be taken advantage of if we take the matter to the police.
So Daisy B. is left to her own devices and everybody goes back to their own lives after the bi-weekly screams have stopped reverberating and the honking of jostling taxis has taken over the world again. I think of her occasionally, curled up on my ivory couch in California, and pray she is kept from further harm. But for the old families of my erstwhile neighborhood, this episode of karma beats their nightly airing of reality television. And life, twisted bitch, wins hands down against soap-saga fiction.
There’s something about a Navroze meal. The sensual downward slide of ghee, the sizzle of restless onions, garlic permeating the yellow lentil, discreetly, determinedly, a stealth bomber on a mission. Spices commune in a group sizzle, arms around each other, one last hurrah before their scent soars toward the air vent and look out! Here comes the water!
The rice, long, white and fragrant, steams patiently. The fish crisps to perfection slowly, tantalizingly. Sev, sweet, darling sev, barely tolerates the nuts it’s surrounded by. And the dahi, vanilla-and-cardamom-splashed, knows its churn will come.
A moment of silence for missing Falooda. He couldn’t join us this year due to a prior commitment. An ounce of gratitude as it all gathers on your plate, warmly, wholesomely.
Feast your senses. Close your eyes. Inhale.
Now, gather around, help yourself and let Spring begin with contentment.
There is something about being at a long table occupied by one’s closest friends. The chatter, the cross-talk, the inside jokes that have gone on for years, the sharing of food and drink and the swapping of babies. There is something very special about all being friends and not just friends + mandatory spouses. And tonight, as I ate my meal basking in warmth, familiarity and old-shoe comfort, watched the Boy walk around with my best friend’s son and entertain him without a thought to his own dinner, held another friend’s 14-month-old hell bent on bumping heads with me and cackling, sang along with the guitarist who played at our table, talked of travel plans and life plans and guitar-strumming plans for tomorrow night, I felt blessed. And immensely grateful. And painfully aware that I was consciously embossing this evening in my memory, knowing it may not always be this way.
Tonight, I had what people around the world wish for. Roots, love and hope for tomorrow. A noisy evening not loud enough to drown out the voice that said “Thank you, Lord. I will carry a snapshot of this evening wherever life may take me and know I am not alone.”
When Sujin called, Valli was already halfway through re-organizing the kitchen cabinets. Perspiration on her face and resentment in her heart, she silently cursed herself for taking on the mantle of the cleaner one. The maid had disappeared two weeks ago and with Diwali around the corner, chances of finding a substitute were slimmer than the size she aspired to be. So when he uttered something a shade thoughtless, she was ripe for the mother of all tantrums.
They fought for 47 minutes. 47:28, to be precise. And as they raged back and forth and spewed acrimony into the cellular heavens, tears poured down her cheeks unchecked. Grabbing the nearest available towel, she wiped her eyes and blew hard. Pale yellow mucus stared placidly back at her. She raged some more. She blew some more. Until the mustard-colored towel glistened evenly and she carefully arranged it on the back of his chair, right on top of the cleaner blue one, exactly as she had found it.
Two hours later, her run ended abruptly. The neighbor’s dog had mistaken her leg for a lamppost and she hurried home to shower. Sujin was going to be late. So she put on La Boheme at glass-shattering decibels, poured herself some cranberry juice, stripped off her soiled track pants, grabbed the topmost towel off the chair and let the hot jets of water drain her cares away.
One wonders if all endings begin this way. When, as if by mere routine, words are spilled, severing frayed ropes, and the universe doesn’t come crashing down, and remains in startling suspension instead. Particles flash-freeze whilst orbiting the present and you join them willy-nilly, mouth agape, eyes puzzled, the back of your voice small and bewildered.
But I haven’t finished washing all the curtains yet, you want to say. And there’s that curry still out of the fridge. Aren’t you proud I put on the futon cover all by myself, cursing softly as my back strained against its cottony bulk? There are tea lights wrapped on the dressing table, you point out, certain he won’t notice, although the baked-apples-and-cinnamon scent would give away their hiding place to a more observant soul. And the cook has a new green dish to match his Thai curry. Stacks and stacks of diyas in traffic light colors. Mounds of pedas and jalebis with their burst of sweetness. Marigold garlands to match the centre chattai, its gilt edges complementing the patterns on the cushions. The missing urli I coveted with the single-mindedness of the barren.
Who will receive that call from Westside, asking to pick up the new jali bench? Will you tell the man I hounded all week before Diwali that I was an apparition and am now exorcised? Can you tell our friends in passionate detail how the pearly white of its new cushions was meant to offset that of the futon? Put away our pictures, take down the lights, the faux toys of the lamp hanging mock the silence, the plants remain unsung to, crumpled at the edges, the sea we gazed at spooningly an outsider in its home.
But you’ll see me in the fold of the coverlet, hear my song in your drawer of holey socks. My toothbrush lies there, brittle and waiting, and the shampoo you used to smell of me. You’ll discard slippers in defiance, but my voice won’t cease to drone. And my spirit will wander in that restless hour when the sun’s last rays grudgingly dim.
Maybe all endings begin this way. But those curtains, they’re only half washed. Put them in a spin cycle, won’t you? For I am frozen still.
I am an immigrant. I’ve lost my way of life so many times over, there is no one pattern for me anymore. With no fixed path, or state of being, I swim in cultures as fluid as quicksilver, flow downstream with grace and ease. I switch, transform and blend into the bushes. The color of varied greens seeps into my skin, the odd greyness of new skies reflects in my wide open irises, and I soak, I suck, I imbibe. Not for me are known ways of being, familiar stones of aged houses, the reflection of neighbors down the street, ones who saw me as a mere bump in a young, taut belly. I spin in tongues, accents tumble off my shoulders. Seascapes and strange fish, I look at anew. Fresh pictures I put up of untrammeled spaces, as intimate as the montage I’ve left far behind.
I am an immigrant. I’ve known (far too) many homes. Countries, borders, hedges, airline terminals, they all nod in tandem to greet me. Acceptance, rejection, bewilderment and belonging melt into the dense, sticky core of energy that is my life. And you, settled soul who has never be-housed new shores, can only wonder at these alternative ways of grab-a-day living, where roots are replaced by peregrinating feet. There are losses, yes, and gains a-plenty. But both slip through my fingers even as I speak and my next new patch of earth awaits me.
I am an immigrant. Respectfully anointed. I may come home to old crannies, but I’ll never be wholly back. And my eyes, they’ll always be gazing into the distance. And I bear my cross willingly.
Soli the Kamakli lives right below us. Now before all you politically correct people pounce on me for calling someone less abled (kam = less, akl=brains), I must hasten to inform you that I am merely faithfully reproducing matters as they stand. And since you are unlikely to storm the almost 100-year-old Parsi bastion of high ceilings and cool corridors that is our common abode, demanding a change in title for him, you must be content with Soli the Kamakli.
Truth be told, I don’t know his last name. Nor can I hazard a guess about his age. He’s always been around, you see. Loping rapidly and uncoordinatedly to the door as we climbed up the stairs, peering out of the peep hole in silence, and then yodeling our names as we ran past, his long, comical face stretching even further into an eternal oblong.
Soli the Kamakli is a lonely man. He lives with Viru, his man Friday, who makes three additional salaries a month by renting out the extra rooms of the house to newly-arrived job-seekers in Bombay. He is also a rich man, the heir to millions and the owner of a South Bombay Parsi housing colony. It is widely murmured among the old families of the neighborhood that there lies a curse on the Kamakli family: no heir shall be able to enjoy his/her wealth. His mother inherited a fortune, but died crazed and clueless. Madness lurks in their genes, you can see it in the crackling dilation of their irises, but for us, Soli the Kamakli is a much-loved fixture who sing-songs daily as we go past, telling us we’ve forgotten him, of how the world has no time, asking after each member of our home, making us stop a while and smile and shush the twinges of guilt we feel about being such busybodies.
Soli the Kamakli is a young old man, an ageless creature of antiquity, a sane man in an insane world and a clock that cuckoos the slipping of time. It’s been years since school and college, so many of us have moved out, swapped continents, returned and traversed mind-zones, but our time-trained ears are still treated to the sound of shuffling feet, a peep-hole shutter being lifted and the precise hush before our name is warbled.
I don’t know why I told you about Soli the Kamakli. He is not a famous man, or even a clever one. He didn’t discover relativity or father babies that resemble gamboling puppies. He lives his long days in sky blue bush shirts and starched white pyjamas and worn leather slippers that scrape soothingly. It is strange to be aware of one’s mortality at 30, but I realize that life is seeping us by. And I want to cling on, just a little while longer, to a time when my name is yodeled twice daily and a flute-like voice declares I have forgotten its owner. The stairs won’t be the same without Soli the Kamakli. Until then, I’m making sure I get plenty of exercise.
Ultra Violet
Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 
Vox populi