Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Five : In Between Aai And Baba

Weddings were like funerals. The aftermath was a feeling of endless emptiness and missing the vibrancy that once coloured our life. Our apartment was deadly silent as if in mourning, not for my sister's departure obviously, but for the lakhs of rupees spent on her wedding. We ate minimal food consisting of lentils and rice like the family of someone who had passed away. We wore dull clothes and tears threatened to well up in my father's eyes every time someone reminded him of the money he owed. The sight of the wedding photos sent my father in a new spasm of depression as he regretted every extra piece of fancy, useless decoration or the rasgullas in the buffet that shouldn't have been ordered since gulab jamuns were already present. Wasteful planning.

"For your nephew's first birthday we gave more than what she gave us for Pavitra's wedding," said my mother to my father, judging the plain white envelope from which the money mockingly peeked out. She shoved it back in the envelope, exasperatedly slapping it on the dining table where she was seated. "What a supportive sister you have!"

My father's eyebrows furrowed deeper in vexation as he concentrated on the tiny numbers in the old, pocket-size diary that was as worn-out as him. His wispy hair surrounded a shiny bald spot like grass growing sparse near a clearing. He wore rimless glasses high on the bridge of his nose. His body was thin except for his pot-belly which stuck out prominently when he wore off-white undershirts in the house.

Ours was a two-bedroom apartment in the western suburbs of Mumbai, a house for which my father was paying off the loan for fifteen years. My father had a salaried job in the accounts department of an unheard company, but his job had been stable with a monthly income sufficient for our family. Not so sufficient for extra expenses like a big, fat Indian wedding. I knew that whenever my father looked at me these days, he was sorely reminded of my future wedding expenses like a grieving fellow watching another of his relatives catch a deadly disease. He grew irritable.

My mother's sour taunts towards my father increased, for his silly mistakes as well as mine. If I left my dirty clothes in the bathroom, it was my father's fault who precisely twenty-eight days ago had committed the same crime and taught me bad manners. If I did a lousy job at sweeping the floors, it was because I was my father's daughter and inherited his slothful genes. If I wanted to pursue humanities instead of sciences, it was because my father failed to raise me with some rational sense.

When my obsequious father hopped on my mother's wagon of humanities being a useless field, my mother's years of suppressed frustration from her dull marriage made her turn against my father and encourage me to do whatever the hell I wanted to do. So I was shrewdly planning to apply for humanities after my results would be declared, pleased that I wasn't forced into taking up science like hundreds of unfortunate kids against their interest. Still, I didn't find the answer to "whatever the hell I wanted to do" and that plagued my future-oriented mind. I spent sleepless nights tossing on the bed like a boat repeatedly being beaten by the torrential waves of the sea.

"Aai, I'm going out with Lila in the evening to see a film," I announced, gauging her reaction from above the blank screen of my phone.

"Cinema crazy like her father," she muttered, glancing at another envelope of money.

My father's ears perked up at those displeased words and he jumped at the opportunity of showing his care towards his wife, gaining her favour and exercising his authority over me. "No . . . Tulsi. You can't go out today. Look at your poor mother, she's been caught up in chores since morning and now she has to make chaklis for Sheela aunty's order. Stay back and help in packing the food."

My miserly mother ran a successful business of making snacks and selling them in the neighbourhood, saving every rupee for a mysterious, future calamity just like the numerous empty boxes which she kept for future storage purposes. She championed in recycling and her stinginess unknowingly did wonders for the environment. But, she never thought about the environment apart from the occasional comments on pollution. It was the dwindling finances which sparked a fire in her and made her fiercely independent. A quality which she had yearned since years as a housewife was now fulfilled.

"Don't dump your work on her. You promised to help me with packing the orders," came my mother's biting response to my father and I couldn't resist a triumphant grin. My father mumbled something, shooting me a glare and returning to the numbers in the diary. Just then, my phone buzzed like an electric shaver and it was Lila's message urging me to meet her in fifteen minutes.

I quickly slipped into skinny jeans and a beige, pullover sweater since it would be cold in the theatre. I wore a stack of gold bracelets and did a winged eyeliner, wondering what Lila was going to wear. Her words from the wedding echoed in my ears, "We were rating people's outfits," and that made me twist and turn in front of the mirror. Would she approve of this? When I left home with the hopeless weight of trying to look nice, the lack of questions from my parents about my safety and return was attributed to the fact that I was with Lila, the girl who they adored and whose parents they deeply venerated.

Lila was cosily seated cross-legged in the backseat of her Audi car, dressed in a faded hoodie and blue, ripped shorts which made me feel over-dressed. I gently knocked on the spotless window and she looked up from her phone (I noticed that she was texting me,"Come fast or---") and she excitedly opened the door. As I slid beside her, I asked, "Or what? You can only sit and wait."

She playfully shoved me. "I was thinking of running the car over you!"

"But Manu bhai won't do that, right Manu bhai?" I repeated my sentence in hindi to Lila's driver, Manu, who laughingly shook his head and started the car.

* * *

Glossary

Rasgullas- a type of sweet.

Chaklis- a type of crunchy snack.

Bhai- brother.

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