A short story - based on a news report

Short Story

It was a day like any other. It started off well enough like any other. She'd woken up at the usual time, just around 6. Not that there was any reason to, actually - now that they were just the two of them - she and her husband of these 49 years. 

Her children had long moved out and the small flat no longer was filled with the noise of laughing, crying, playing, fighting, little children. 

Her daughter, Varsha, now lived abroad with her husband and six year old son. They Skyped - once a week, usually on Saturday evening. She could not honestly admit to love for her grandson, Akshay, who she had yet to meet in the flesh. After all, how can we love a Skype image? The boy was pretty, well behaved even, but equally aloof and formal. Perhaps next year, finally, she would get to see him when they came over from New Jersey - though, similar promises had been made, often enough, in the past.

Her son lived closer - in the next street, actually. Rohan was a good boy. Caring. Loving. His wife, too, was as nice a daughter-in-law as one could reasonably expect in today's world. All said and done, she was still a daughter-in-law, not a daughter. Some distance was inevitable, no?

Shaking herself out of these useless straying thoughts she returned to her routines. Filling up fresh drinking water in the clay pots. Watering the tulsi plant in the kitchen window. Cutting up the vegetables to be cooked for lunch. Getting the newspaper for her husband to read. Getting his bath water heated. A hazaar things that seemed to be the sum of her existence. 

As she went about her day Shrikant, her husband, 76 years of age, still erect, brimming with energy, came cheerily in from his morning walk. Filling the small flat with his booming voice, his abundant presence, talking incessantly about this, that and a myriad other things.

There was a time when she loved his cheerful outlook.

Handing him a steaming mug of tea along with his newspaper she gently said, "Go and bathe once you've done with your chai. We have things to do this morning" 

He grinned at her, accepting the chai & paper, saying, "Oh yes, Nalini, I remember. Your visit to the clinic. Don't worry yourself too much. Most of the test results are normal. And that little lump? Forget it, it will be nothing!", he laughed. 

She smiled back but wished, just for one fleeting second, "I wish he could turn down this overbearing cheeriness just a wee bit!" Even as she thought it she felt a twinge of guilt. 
Returning to the kitchen cum puja room, she went about her chores. Breakfast now ready while, at the same time multi tasking to finish reciting her mantras, settling the monthly bill with the doodhwala, keeping the trash bucket outside... where did the morning go? The clock was showing 9:25 without her having been aware of time fleeting. 

But this, too, was a daily norm... busy busy busybusy in the little, little small things that over decades had worn her down. The devil, she'd heard her husband say, lives in the details. What did he know, she thought to herself. Those streaks of grey that first appeared when she was still in her 30s; her spectacles to help her read - she who had always had the sharpest, keenest eyesight among her friends; that slight stoop that seemed to slowly shrink her by the time she was 50.. These daily routines had gradually eroded her without anyone ever noticing. Today, as she stood before her dressing mirror, applying sindoor to her forehead, she found herself thinking of her childhood. Thinking of how her mother used to apply kajal to her eyes, braid her hair… surely, that was a different age, that belonged to a different person. She was not that girl at all, she who was 69 years old today. She had no right to even have those memories, let alone indulge in nostalgia.

From the front room Shrikant’s voice boomed genially, “Are you ready? Time to go. The appointment is at 11 and it’s already 10:00. Bring all the papers, they’re in that file in the cupboard!”

“I’m almost done, just 2 minutes” she said, while locking up the cupboard from where she’d taken her medical file. A quick peep into the kitchen, a silent hurried “Hare Rama, Hare Rama” to her beloved god and they were off.

Her mind was teeming with thoughts… what will the doctor have to say? What will I have to do to adjust/change my lifestyle. Will everything be all right, as Shrikant keeps saying? Absently she climbed into the autorickshaw, and she heard Shrikant tell the driver, “Kandivli station, and make it quick”. She began to think of the long wait at the clinic. There would be at least 40 – 50 patients and she hoped she would not be the last. The stench of the hospital was something she had never got used to. Not even after her own deliveries. Hospitals were places that held unpleasant memories – her father’s long drawn out demise (tuberculosis), her mother’s (she simply stopped living, slowly, dying day by day due to sheer exhaustion), her brother (hit by a truck). There were more but she averted her thoughts.

By now they had reached Kandivli station. It was just past 10 and the station was, as ever, crowded. It was teeming with what seemed like millions of people, to her unaccustomed eyes. She was not used to crowds, not much used to travelling on the Mumbai locals. The few times that she had been, it was always with Shrikant. She would hold on to his hand for dear life, and cling close to him. He would laughingly put his arm around her, protectively, sheltering her from the raging crowds, his twinkling eyes gently making fun of her fears. She would look into his eyes and slowly allow her tensed muscles to relax, and finally smile back at him, chiding herself for her anxiety. How safe she always felt with her husband. She was truly lucky, she knew, a simple village girl married to this gentle city bred giant.

She had never been to a town, prior to her marriage. And here, in Mumbai, at the age of 20, wide eyed and fear filled, she had stepped into her marital home. Her mother-in-law, a strong willed disciplinarian, her absentee father-in-law posted on some remote border working with the army as a sergeant, Shrikant’s two rowdy younger brothers who were ever hungry, ever playful, ever filled with bubbling energy that even their mother could not control. All these 49 years in Mumbai she had been out of the house barely a few times each year – not because she wasn’t allowed to, rather she felt comfortable and safe within the walls of her home, her safe nest.

Standing on the platform while Shrikant went to get the railway coupons punched, she wrapped the pallu of her sari over her head, demurely. The simple, traditional village girl had long vanished – replaced by a typical village grandmother, not for her the confident stride of a city lady. She still found it strange to see girls, women of all ages wearing trousers, those things that they called jeans, tops and stuff. And, most shocking of all, the casual way in which people mixed together, walking with arms around each other, smoking and all these modern fads. She still found these things disturbing and would shake her head in disgust, only to find Shrikant – and, later, even Rohan – laughing at her simple villager views.

Shrikant came striding back to her side through the crowds and she fell in step by his side, her hand instinctively seeking his. Walking up to the platform they waited among the crowds, as he kept on a steady stream of chatter that she silently listened to without paying much attention. When you’ve lived together for so long, there’s actually nothing new that needs to be said, really, no? An occasional nod of the head, a quiet “yes” and that’s more than enough. Not that Shrikant ever needed her to speak anything much. He was naturally talkative and merely needed an audience for his peroration.

The train was pulling in now and she gripped his hand even more tightly. The crowds were milling around, jostling for space, in that animalistic manner that only a Mumbai local crowd knows how. Even as people were pouring out of the compartment, others were jumping up, fighting for a toe-hold. Shrikant pulled her closer, holding her hand gripped tightly in his, and telling her, “Now, come up, fast, climb in NOW”. She moved forward two steps and a young lad, a college student perhaps, rushed in between, a large shoulder bag on his bag, oblivious to her presence, oblivious to her plight, and casually, with the confident arrogance of youth stepped onto the train as it began to move.

She felt Shrikant’s grasp tighten, she tightened her grip back, panic stricken as she noticed him standing inside the train, and then, inexorably, as the train gathered speed, that connection was broken. He was looking at her, for once, worried, alarmed to note that she had not come aboard. He was gesticulating wildly now, eyes wide in anxiety, trying to get out of the compartment, trying to come back to her side but the crowd pressed in with too much force. She saw the look of despair in his eyes as he realized that he would not make it.

The last she saw of him was his efforts to try and gesture to her to stay exactly where she was. He was trying to say something more – perhaps, he was saying that he would get off at the next station and make his way back – but by then he was lost to her sight.

It had all happened so swiftly, within a few seconds really, that she still hadn’t come to terms with it. Standing there, on the briefly empty platform, looking dazed, she did not know what to do. She looked around, saw an empty bench and went and sat on it. Still in shock at her sudden abandonment, she did not even make an effort to THINK. Clutching her file containing her medical papers, she sat there, gazing fixedly at nothing.

How long she sat thus, she did not know. All she knew was she that Shrikant would surely come. He would come and rescue her, take her back into the comfort and safety of his genial smile. She was sure, too, that he would first give vent to his anxiety and fear by shouting at her, till he would cool down. She knew him. She knew that behind the impending burst of volcanic fury a little child was hiding, someone who needed to let off the steam before becoming normal again. She smiled, inwardly, anticipating his lecture.

She glanced around. Kandivli station was once again teeming with hordes of commuters hurrying along, busily marching to wherever their destinies took them. She looked at her wrist watch and found, with a start, that it had been almost 20 minutes since she was left alone. Surely, Shrikant ought to have been back by now? Meanwhile, all around her, people kept walking purposefully, marching to their destinies.

She stopped for a moment, contemplating that word – Destiny. She was never one to think “serious” stuff, before. Yet here she was, suddenly thinking of this word. It seemed mysterious, alluring. She contemplated the word more carefully, silently mouthing it to herself before saying it out aloud. “Kismet”, she said. “Naseeb, taqdeer, bhaagya” Different words, all of them sounding strange, unfamiliar to her for she had always gone passively with the flow.

She looked once again at the purposeful hordes around her. Men, women, even the young teens seemed to walk with long, hurried strides, going God knows where. She glanced at her wristwatch again. 25 minutes had elapsed. She suddenly was seized of the thought that she, too, must hurry before it was too late. She knew that time was now running out, that this moment that was made available to her was an opportunity. She ought to seize it.

She, who had all her life allowed things to happen, was now in a unique position. She could – no, she should! – seize this opportunity and make something of it. Briefly she considered… she could take a rickshaw and go home, or go to her daughter-in-law’s house. She could even, perhaps, go to the clinic (after all, the file was still with her)

Or… or… the thoughts were still unformed, inchoate. Yet she knew, she could not afford to wait any longer. He would be here any moment and then she would no longer be able to DO anything of her own will.

Suddenly she came to a decision. She got up and began to walk, towards the exit gate.

Epilogue: An hour later, Shrikant and Rohan were in the Kandivli station CCTV control room, reviewing the footage. They saw Nalini clearly from one camera. The footage ran for about 26 minutes. She was just sitting, quietly, on the bench for a long time, silently as though waiting for someone. And then she got up, took a few hesitant steps, towards the exit gate. Slowly, they could see, she stood a little bit more erect, her shoulders seemed to square, her head lifted up with a strange confidence that they found unfamiliar. She walked briskly up to, and out of the camera frame.

That was then. More than 22 days ago. The only news after that last frame was the discovery of a plastic cover containing her medical reports. Nothing else.