Eliza was storming through the set of drawers in my parents’ room, searching for a puncher, when she came across an austere looking envelope with no address. The empty house spurred me on to open it and when she did, she found this:
5th Oct, 2019
Dear Eliza,
It’s Maa. You turn 16 today at exactly 10:53 a.m. The last 16 years seem to have imprinted onto each other like wet words, a blur of so many feelings and emotions, some shared, others left untouched. But I think it’s time to dust off the cobwebs of suppression off them.
Last month, when you didn’t talk to me for a week after discovering that I never told you that I took a fashion designing course in college, I got a glimpse of what my silence about my life means to you. I have noticed how you look at me with expectant eyes, after your Papa tells you anecdotes about selling kites and comics at your Dadaji’s shop, waiting to hear something about me. But I kept the flood of memories that I had left behind, bolted tightly shut. Maybe because it is not nearly as jolly as technicolour kites flying in the blue sky, or maybe because I feared what it would mean to you, to us.
This is the first letter in a series of letters that I wish to write to you. I will give them to you either when words have soaked up all the snippets of my life I want you to have, or when that life itself no longer survives.
Let me start by telling you about your Nani. Her name was Sharda. Her delicate cheekbones were draped with lovely brown skin and her ageless black hair would run in a plait down her back and almost touch the ground, like a mountaineer’s rope, just as strong, if not more. I wonder what she would have to say about my greying riot of a hair. Her eyes seemed to be both happy and sad, like the river Ganga that carries centuries worth of sins of penitent men and women, but still sparkles to invite more. And her smile. It was the perfect balm for every ache in the heart.
Your Nani was a remarkable woman. She would make me braid her hair so tight, I feared that one day I would find tufts of her braid in my hands, torn clear off. She would make Nan Khatai for me, just like I do for you. They used to be so delicious and would melt in our mouths as if they never held a solid shape. I wish you could taste them. We would play kanche in the afternoons in our verandah and then fall asleep, her hand on my forehead, on the threaded khats she made with her own hands. We didn’t say much. Just basked in comfort of the radiant silence that we created. But I wish that I had known more about her. So much more.
Old North Indian houses used to have steel rails cut into their terrace floors so that the residents would know if monkeys had decided to raid it. One day, someone in our house forgot to lock the rails. Your Nani, who was coming back from watering her garden, stepped on it and fell straight through, onto the water bucket the maid had left there while mopping the floor. The sight of her blood had numbed my heart, and I tried to imagine a life without her, only to fail. She had so many head injuries that she didn’t discover one of them until a week after she fell, while washing her hair, and went about doing the same as if nothing out of ordinary had happened.
Did I tell you that she used to sing? Her voice flowed as if it was being carried by a river and she would turn ordinary songs into such beautiful pieces of artistry that the original piece would fade into nothing more than whisper of her sweet voice. I still remember the feel of the coarseness that years of work had inflicted upon her hands, as she caressed my forehead and sang me to sleep whenever I was sick. But I couldn’t do the same for her. I couldn’t use my touch to make her once strong self come back from the brink of an existence that I didn’t have any access to. She died 17 years ago because of Diabetes. I still can’t believe it. How could her warrior self, who singlehandedly taught me how to fight the whole world, and fought against it herself, succumb to a disease?
At that time, it seemed like no one could stop me from succumbing to the noose of grief that had gripped my entire body. But then, I discovered that just as I was about to lose her, I had you growing up in my belly. Before she was gone, she had placed a hand on my belly and smiled that healing smile and even in death, she blessed you with all that she had left. I am sorry I lied to you and told you that she had already passed away 2 years before you were born. I know this must make you angry, but I have carried the divine weight of that smile on my shoulders ever since that day, hoping one day to stoop it down to yours, fearing if you could carry it. Now, I know that you have grown enough to take it on yourself. And always remember, you may never have had the chance to meet her, but her luminescence will always follow you into the dark, no matter how blind you feel.
Love,
Maa
Clutching the letter to her heart, Eliza realised that her Maa’s secrets were no longer a barrier between them, but a bridge built over her own anger and Maa’s lies and silence, that they had to cross together, to keep from falling.
A cauldron of emotions 