I wasn’t ready to die. I may have, on multiple occasions, tried to prepare myself for the inescapable eventuality of losing people; for deaths outside my body. But my own? Never. On some days, I waxed eloquent about death and the meaning of life and existence, but it did not once cross my languid mind that I could die. On other days I would sit on our balcony breathing in the balmy evening air of Trivandrum and breathing swirls of tobacco smoke out of my lungs and into the silhouette of the city that raised me. With rum and coke in one hand, the deep orange embers of a cigarette glowing in the other, I would often quote Twain: “a man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time”, plausibly misleading anyone who cared to listen into thinking that I was ready to go. I wasn’t. I wanted to stay.
Death, they said, comes at the end of your journey. But when is the end? Who is to tell? Death was supposed to show up in my years of white hair and tattered skin, after time had willed walking sticks and wheel chairs and urine bags; when I had finished living my days and dreaming my nights. Death was to come after I had witnessed at least a hundred rainbows, after I had heard all the songs on the radio. After love, after happiness, after truth and long after experience. I was not finished, I wasn’t prepared, but death did not wait. I had even planned out the next day I never got to see in the leather bound book by my pillow. From where I stood before that fateful day, it looked like I had a long string of tomorrows lined up for me. I have time, I told myself with the frivolity of a butterfly. Life, as I knew it, promised to meander endlessly, like the tranquil Periyar that keeps flowing every day the sun shines; every drop in her relaxed body exploring new banks wordlessly, yet gracefully, as she finds her way into the purple dusk. Even on March 16th, on my last night in my bed next to my wife of nearly three decades, we had shared a quick chuckle about a ‘midlife crisis.’ Ironic, because that’s when it stopped, that’s when my clock stopped ticking. Midsentence… mid-joke… midlife.
However, this is not about me, nor is it about death or grief. This is not about loss or the end. Like cold spring rain that awakens dull winter roots or like the crack of light after the darkest night, this is a beginning from the grey ashes of an end. My end. This story is about the two loves of the life I left behind. Two women who rescued me from the darkness of nothingness; two women who splashed colour into the monochrome of life I had known until then. A glimpse into two lives I have had to watch from afar for the past six months, their tears and their fears, the faint glimmers of joy in their sunken eyes and frequent nudges of guilt. Their missteps and shame, their anger, the blame. All from beyond the realm of sight, sound and touch, I watch them yet. I cannot leave… not yet. I realise now that literature is ironic; living, breathing writers writing about death. And we believe them! I did too during my time. I will not divulge more but fallacies they were all, plain and simple, I can tell you that much.
The airport is nothing like I knew it, and it hasn’t even been very long since I was here in flesh and blood. The place has become unrecognizable. A virus is doing the rounds, they say. But what is a virus to a dead man? Save for a few masked men standing in intervals as frequent as cacti in a movie desert, there is nobody in sight. I sense fear – fear of illness and death. Paranoia. But again, what does a dead man fear? Posters splashed with masked faces, their eyes wide with terror, and ‘Covid-19’ all in caps have been pasted on every pillar that keeps the airport ceiling up. This is all so new, even for me. Dystopian. Airports bereft of emotion, an oxymoron, I would have thought while I lived. Airports are not meant to feel this way. These are places for squeals of happiness and parting tears. This place is meant to clench up chests, to dry up throats, for goodbyes and hellos, anticipation and long hugs. Today it looks empty inside out, uninhabited and hollow, like its soul has been sucked right out and only the bare bones, the empty frame is left to live on. It is a stark contrast to what was left of me. This feels other-worldly, unfamiliar, almost frightening…
I watch her step out of the airport, a black mask drawn all the way up the bridge of her determined nose, her soft brown eyes crinkling in the sunny glare from the hot sands of the nearby beach. Her hair is dyed a new hue of red and patches of cloth are missing from her faded jeans exposing her knees. Her mother will not approve of the hair or the tattered pair of jeans or the crumpled white blouse. Her eyes are sunken deep, has she been crying? She looks around the disconcertingly empty arrival area.
Are you looking for me, Nali?
In all these years she has been living away from us, for college, for work, for independence, this will be the second time she wouldn’t see me waiting for her with open arms and a hug that spoke what words couldn’t. She drags her luggage and walks up to the fleet of taxis parked in the distance. She looks gaunt and flustered – I can see it in her eyes, in the slouch of her small shoulders.
Indu broke the news to me 26 years ago. It was a cool evening as we sat on an makeshift concrete bench by the pink lotus pond behind her grandmother’s home. Countless lotus flowers were in bloom that day, and I felt a surge of overwhelming emotion I hadn’t discovered yet as she spoke the words. Was it happiness or disbelief or apprehension? I clutched her hand tight as words refused to flit from the tongue. There was a small light shining on my dream of making my own family – something I had not known before. Indu tightened her grip on my hand and continued in a small, apologetic voice:
“But I don’t think I am ready for this… I am at such a precarious point in my career, J, I have so much to do. So much to write. I’ll never be able to do justice to either role. I am so confused…”
A single hot tear trickled down my face as the sky burned in the amber of sunset and disappointment. I felt like a child who had been given a tantalizing glimpse of his favourite toy and was then told it was not for him. The light shining on my dream suddenly seemed to dim. Perhaps it was all the tears blocking my vision or was it the twilight setting in? No words were spoken as we sat there, on that ledge watching the lotus flowers nodding in the evening breeze, for minutes or hours neither of us kept track of. We merely sat still, hand in hand, not looking at each other, but at the same golden sunset on the horizon.
That night as the two of us climbed into a small bed that barely managed to hold our bodies, a stream of orange incandescence of the streetlight broke the darkness in our room. As if on cue, Indu placed her head on my shoulder and spoke again, breaking the quiet, her voice as smooth as handwoven silk.
“But I know how important this is for you… You know I’ll do anything for you…”
“You are not ready…”
“I don’t know if I will ever be ready, J.”
“It’s your body, Indu. It’s not a small favour to ask of it…”
“We do everything together, and we have worked everything out so far, haven’t we? We’ve come so far…”
A bird cried from the thickets in the somber metronome of the night and the wind brought with it the scent of waking jasmine buds. The fan whirred above us creaking in no particular rhythm.
“If you decide to go ahead with it, I will do everything it takes… everything. I promise you. I will handle it all…”
We named her Mrinalini, our beautiful lotus flower. Our Nali.
Mrinalini pays the driver and mumbles something under her mask. Her eyes flash a smile, a sparkle which is magically mirrored in the eyes of the grey haired man at the wheel in a fleeting instant. Through all the years I was allowed to walk the earth, I had not noticed that eyes smiled wider than lips. Has it always been this way? When eyes are all you have speak with, perhaps the only choice you have is to learn a new language. She drags two suitcases down the ragged slope leading to our home. Her petite frame staggers with the weight. Little drops of perspiration glisten on her forehead in the late afternoon sunshine. Pink and white bougainvillea seem to have taken over the outer walls, the line of coconut palms and the Ashoka trees rustle in the warm breeze seemingly unperturbed by the virus and the inordinately quiet streets. The mango tree I planted a few monsoons ago has grown. The lawn is overgrown and speckled generously with dried leaves. The unoiled metal gate creaks a complaint of neglect, but my daughter pays no heed.
A young couple holding a baby is seated on the cold verandah step. They look new and clueless, almost as fragile as the drooping pink balsams lining the sides of the steps. Dressed in a faded blue half-sleeved shirt and grey trousers, the boy is trying to hush the wailing infant pressed against his narrow chest. There’s prophesy of a balding head creeping upwards from his lined forehead. He’s humming tunelessly a song about a little yellow bird in the woods but the child does not seem to care. The child is hungry, can’t you tell from the screams? The girl has her head resting on the boy’s bony shoulder. A small red dot between her arched brows, long hair hanging loose all the way down her curved back. She is beautiful. The large brown eyes. I cannot take my eyes off her. She stares emptily into the distance, unfeeling of the rugged song escaping her partner’s lips and the high pitched screams of the child. Is she looking at me?
Mrinalini walks past the young family unflinchingly. The door is unlocked, as is wont to be. Indu can never bring herself to lock doors – she needs them unlatched at all times of the day; at night too, if left to her ways. She’d be locked up in her office upstairs writing, her eyes fixed on the words that spilled out of her deft fingertips onto the white of her laptop screen as she wove story after story from the depths of her imagination. She would leave even the door of her study slightly ajar, just enough to allow the low hum of the air conditioner and a small draft of cold air to escape into the palpable warmth outside. An unwritten ‘No Entry’ sign is pasted outside her door. She hated being interrupted – she could throw a fit, but when I took in two cups of tea every afternoon at four, her eyes lit up. She chases deadlines and publishers chase her, behind the comfort of an unlocked door. It is as though she is always prepared for someone to come into her home, into her life. But what about the ones who walk out? What happens to them? Was the door left open on the day I had to leave? If not, would I have been able to stay long enough to say goodbye?
It is not easy to find Indu. Even if you do find her, you won’t be able to hold on to her for more than a few heartbeats. You could be sitting next to her, speaking to her, perhaps even holding her small, pale hand, but she’d be far away; drowning in the sorrow of a world within the hardbound covers of a book or basking in the comfort of new love in a story. A cause for many a petty fight between us, for she was seldom listening to the sounds beyond the outline of her person. With her large glassy eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the wall, her full lips parted lightly, she wove dreams. We spoke the most when we were engulfed in darkness. We felt the most real when no one was watching us; not even ourselves. When in a good mood, she joked about how she was aptly named after the silver moon – the globe of darkness that shone only when light from another source was cast on her, how there was little light in herself. How she needed another world to keep her alive, another person, another story to fuel the borrowed fire in her. Indu, the love of my life, the full moon of my darkest nights, spoke only a few words and somehow meant them all. Sometimes her words frightened me. I spent chunks of my days preparing to lose her, like fine white sand that slips through your fingers no matter how tightly you try to hold on to it. I wondered what it would be like to lose her, to be alone all over again. Fate chose other means to the same end.
Nali has now strewn her suitcases at the entryway and spread herself on the sofa by the door. Her sweat soaked mask lies meaninglessly on the floor. A half full tea cup sits at the foot of the sofa with a black fly feasting off the rim. A thin film of dust has taken refuge on the glass top of the coffee table. Mrinalini’s eyes are set on the photo on the wall. My photo. A reminder. It is not easy to see your own smiling face confined within four walls of a picture frame. The small black void of the missing tooth glares back; I should have had it fixed. This picture was taken two years ago at her graduation in Bombay; it was just the two of us. Later that evening, we celebrated over two glasses of mediocre wine while the city lights cheered from the other side of our hotel window.
The phone rings. Mrinalini sits up with her left leg neatly folded under her just like her mother. Indu can sit like that for hours on end without budging, especially when she is working. It left me endlessly fascinated.
Move that mop of hair from your eyes, my girl. Let me see your beautiful face.
“Yes, I just walked into the house.”
A long pause and a snigger.
“I haven’t met the celebrity yet… Must be somewhere upstairs working on her next bestseller. When has she had time for me? You know the whole story.”
Whom are you talking to?
“I haven’t told her anything yet; she doesn’t even know that my plans to be here are indefinite. I cannot wait to hear what she will have to say when she hears that the great Indu Menon’s only daughter was fired and is now unable to make rent during a pandemic. Talk about success stories… shameful.”
Whom are you talking to? Is it a boy? What happened to your job? Mrinalini, a job does not define you!
A long pause again. The person on the other side is hopefully easing my daughter’s rage. I know it’s no mean feat, no easy task.
“Understand?” Mrinalini’s loud and unmeaning laugh rings across the dim hallway.
The silent fan above rustles unopened newspapers from yesterdays and the days before. The papers were always mine, but what is news to the dead? I have never seen Indu hold a newspaper if not for lining her wardrobe shelves. Mrinalini continues:
“Are you trying to be funny? Understand. After all these years…My dad would have understood. This woman, my mother, we are practically strangers. My dad was the only one who could get through to her and now with him gone, I am not even sure what I will do alone in this house. Two strangers…I often wonder what my father saw in her!”
Do not talk about your mother like that. Do not talk about Indu like that. She has always done the best she could… she is not a stranger. How can you talk like this?
It is funny how even death does not do away with your feelings, even when people can no longer hear you; even when you can no longer scream or cry. Feelings have life. Feelings remain, anger remains. Love remains. The feeling of being wronged, the anger of a life that was snatched from my grip before it was time. I would have thought that emotions went with the heart and the body, they don’t. They linger on like persevering cigarette smoke – evanescent and disobliging with nowhere to go.
“Anyway, speak later. Wish me luck to find my way out of this hellhole soon.”
Hellhole. This is your home.
Mrinalini kicks off her shoes and curls into a ball on the couch. A crow caws modestly from the trees, perhaps fatigued from the sweltering afternoon heat.
It’s just a job, Nali! We’ll find a new one. Nali! Have you already forgotten all that we have discussed? Can you hear me?
Somewhere a little ahead I see the same boy on the verandah sitting by a bed, holding the small hand of a little girl. His eyes are tired and woeful; the lines on his wide forehead deeper. There was truth in the prophecy of baldness after all. He is older, but is he man enough for the world now? The little girl sleeps with pale skin, dark brows, and tangled black hair spread all over her pillow; her small face suspended somewhere between truth and delirium. There is a wet cloth placed on her forehead and she mumbles words incoherently. The man is crying – he looks scared and alone. I can see the tears streaming soundlessly down his face. He does not look ahead, he does not see me.
Twilight seems to be fast approaching and I watch Nali sleep. I wish I could kiss her forehead and ask her to march ahead confidently. I wish I could whisper into her ears that I am right by her side, always; that I will take care of every hurdle in her path, that there isn’t a single problem in the world we cannot solve together. But that is not true anymore. The rest of her path, she needs to walk on her own. Have I taught her enough? Have I done enough? Have I failed as a father?
It’s getting late, where is Indu?
I haven’t had a glimpse into her life for the past many days. Before that I watched Indu from afar. I watched her cry, I watched her sleep, I watched her write, I watched her tear things apart; for months. But I haven’t been able to reach her for days now. This feels like an long wait outside her study, the door left slightly ajar. I know she hates being interrupted. Maybe this helplessness is what death brings. Like one of those dreams where you are walking the streets innocuously and you are struck by an unknown creature. You try to scream and shout but not a sound leaves your tense throat. You stand there watching everything, like an invisible face in the crowd. Powerless. Fatigued. No one sees you, no one hears you, no one cares for you. A nobody. You are just a few pages of history in one or two people’s lives, the ink fading fast. You don’t matter anymore, your story has ended and you watch the earth reclaim everything you thought belonged to you. Your stories, your memories, that shirt you kept aside for a special day, that well-thumbed notebook, everything. No one belongs to you anymore, nothing belongs to you. Time, it moves on, the clock ticks, the sun shines and the world keeps on turning…
Where is Indu? I am beginning to feel slightly uneasy. Is she safe? Is she well? Has she eaten?
Wake up, Nali! Why don’t you go check on Amma once? Nali!
And further in the slow darkness that is setting into the corners of our living room, I see the same man again. This time he looks older than the last time I saw him. He has a pair of gold rimmed glasses balanced on the ridge of his nose. The crown of his head, hairless and shiny. A paunch that snitches of age and the weary paths that have been trudged on, sleepless nights and habits undeserving of praise. He seems to have lost a tooth. A young girl with wild hair, consumed in the effervescence of adolescence, is shouting at him. Her hands flailing about, her eyes flashing fury and disappointment. They’re welling up with hot, salty tears ready to form scorching rivulets down her cheeks. The man is trying his best to calm her down, being her voice of reason; speaking with patience and infinite love. She only screams louder:
“She has never had the time for me… never! I spent almost all my life yearning for a good word to drop from that mouth… not once… I don’t look like her, I am not good enough for her. That woman is ashamed of me.”
The rivulets of anger and self-pity now flows freely. Nothing releases tears faster than a sudden surge of self-pity. The man tries to place his hand on her small shoulders but she is quick to push it away. She continues:
“Acha, it is my graduation in two days. I have two medals to my name… two gold medals. This was the day I hoped the three of us would spend together. I was certain she’d finally be proud of me… that she would finally clap for me…”
“Of course she is proud… She isn’t well enough to travel…” The man tries to get words in, but what weight have words in front of a woman who has been scorned.
“I am so tired of this nonsense. So tired! She is well enough for her tours and for you, just not for me. She does not care, not the least bit. She cannot think of anyone else but herself and her work and her stupid books…” She rubs her red face in her palms. “This is it, I want nothing to do with the woman ever again. There’s something in this world called self-respect,’ she spat, ‘just in case you haven’t heard of it.”
Nali, please wake up. Your mother is not fine.
Our home is submerged in translucent darkness now. Objects and belongings that were once mine are now mere silhouettes in the teasing play of yellow streetlight and shadow. Nali’s dull outline stirs. Birds returning to their nests cry from the treetops as if in a delicate attempt to awaken my daughter. Temple bells chime in the distance. But the silence in this house does not break. The silence is almost physical, I can almost touch it. I can almost hear it. It frightens even me. Why hasn’t Indu come downstairs yet? Is she ill? Does she need me? Through all the years that I spent wondering what I’d do if she were to be taken away from me I did not spend a moment think what she would do if something was to happen to me. Where is she? It is time for her to come down and switch on the lights! It is time for her dinner! Is she ill? Does she know where the medicine box is?
Nali, my child, please go check on you mother. Mrinalini! For my sake.
Her phone rings once again and the ringtone breaks the viscose silence. A relief. She stirs, stretches her arm out and cuts the call.
Please don’t go back to sleep, Nali.
She doesn’t. Instead she stretches, lets out a tired yelp, gets up and switches on a light. She shakes out her hair loose, and ties it back again into a large bun at the nape of her neck. I always wanted bright white lights in our home; I wanted to see everything there was to see. Indu disagreed. She hates bright light, she thrives in the shadows. And for her, I settled for these dull, warm bulbs. I hated them all along but today, I don’t. It is uncanny how much this girl looks like Indu in the ochre of the light. The hollow of her cheeks, with pockmarks left behind by acne, her long, slender neck, the frown lines, the look of concern… and there I am, still smiling the same smile from beyond the glass of the picture frame.
I follow Nali up the stairs as she switches on every light along the way. Every click of the switch revealing sights I had forgotten – the crammed bookshelves, dusty photos, nameless and familiar rubble, my Rubik’s cube. Upstairs, the study door is left wide open; there isn’t a flicker of luminescence inside, the air conditioner does not breathe. Where is she! Nali then makes her way into the bedroom I shared with Indu for years, and switches on the light.
There’s a small frame on the bed under a mound of two or three blankets. It’s her! And next to her, on my side of the bed by the window, a striped grey shirt. My shirt. Next to my stack of pillows, my notebook. My black, leatherbound notebook. My tomorrows, my plans, our future scribbled on straight, faint lines running through the book – page after page, day after day.
“Amma?”
Indu… What happened, my darling? Where were you all these days?
She does not stir.
“Amma are you sick?”
Nali, I don’t think she is fine… Do something. Quick.
Nothing.
Nali walks up to her. She is asleep, her closed eyelids fluttering like she is in the middle of a bad dream. Nali places a hand on her mother’s forehead and pulls it back as if on reflex.
“You are burning!”
Indu winces as her daughter’s cold palm comes in contact with her blistering skin. Her lips are parched and white. She struggles to open her eyes, to focus on the face kneeling at her bedside.
“Amma what happened? You have a high fever… Shall I drive you to the hospital? Can you walk?”
Indu shakes her head weakly and tries to mouth something. Her eyes are watery and her fingers shake like fragile leaves in the wind as she feels her face. Her lips move, she is trying to say something but her mouth is too waterless to let words run smooth. She tries again and mouths the word:
“Water.”
Do something quick… Get her water! I don’t know how long she has been sick… Call a doctor… Nali, get her to the hospital now.
Nali runs downstairs and comes running back up with a bottle of water and two pieces of dry bread. She places the supplies on the nightstand next to my watch and my phone. Nali pours out a glass and then gently props her mother’s head up using two pillows. My pillows.
Gently, Nali! Gently.
“Here drink this water. And eat this. You need medicine. Where is the medicine box?”
It’s in my cupboard, Nali! Next to the document file. It’s right here.
Indu finishes the glass of water in one go and makes a face when she sees the two slices of dry bread. Her voice is feeble and weak.
“When did you come? I was waiting for you… I was going to make dinner, then I fell asleep… what time is it?”
“Just eat this and we can talk after. Where is the medicine box?”
“What have you done to your hair?”
And for the first time of this aimless existence, I feel it’s time to leave. I take one last look at Indu’s face propped up by my pillows, my worn-out shirt lightly touching her small body. Her brows, her perfect forehead now covered with a small wet cloth, the hollow of her cheeks, her skin, her perfect mouth. She has the most beautiful face I have even seen. Then there’s my child kneeling next to her, my sweet girl, my Nali. She holds her mother’s small hand in her own. There is an inexplicable peace that is taking over. Something tells me they will be all right in this house. There’s no place for me here anymore. Maybe my job here is done, maybe it was done a long time ago?
In the dark hallway, a lotus pond with a thousand lotus flowers in full bloom beckons to me. The big, round moon shines on them lovingly and silver strands glisten on the motionless water. The velvet sky is clear, not a cloud in sight. A dainty breeze lull us all to sweet slumber. There’s peace, there’s silence, there is a curious harmony. I find myself drifting away as I hear Indu’s feeble voice one last time:
“Please stay… please stay with me…”
Nali holds her mother’s hand tight, presses it against her chest:
“I am not going anywhere.”
Hello you,
Welcome to Late Afternoon Brews, my world of words, if you are new. Welcome back if you are not. This story, Eclipse, is a work of fiction that I wrote sometime in 2021 while the pandemic was still raging outside my window. Today, with a little prodding from Sriram, my partner and forever first reader, I decided to let these words fly out of the confines of my laptop screen. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please drop me a comment or and please consider sharing this piece with friends, family and strangers alike. It would mean a mighty lot to me.
Much love, always xx