He woke up very early, hearing small clanging sounds. They were coming from the silver-grey metal columns of the old radiator in the room. He longed for coffee. He had not seen Kavita the previous day. Rangi had heated up some food for him on a plate in the microwave and he had eaten so as not to offend, rather than out of hunger.
His son-in-law seemed pleasant enough. He had brought in the luggage, told him where the extra blankets were, showed him how the hot and cold taps in the bathroom worked. Everything seemed to work in reverse, even the light switches.
He sat up in bed, drawing the bedclothes around himself. Through the windows he could see that it was not fully light but was it really snowing a little? He was amazed at how beautiful the snow was. Fractal flakes, each part replicating the whole. It had seemed perfect as an idea in a book; it was equally perfect in reality. What was it called – self-similarity.
One’s children were a different proposition, of course. Probably a good thing.
He had sat there for a long time when Kavita walked in, dressed and ready for the day. ‘Good morning, Appa, you’re up early.’
He got out of bed a little stiff, walked towards her. ‘Kavita! Missed you last night.’
‘Don’t you start, Appa,’ she said.
‘No, no, dear, it’s good to see you.’
‘See, I need to sleep at the same time every night, no matter what happens. No exceptions. If I don’t look after myself, who will?’
‘That’s fine, dear,’ he said. ‘Rangi took very good care of me. And Sunny. How he’s grown!’
‘Okay, Appa, I’ll show you how things work. You’ll have to learn how to make your own coffee, I’m very busy in the mornings before I leave for work. I do some stuff online before I go in.’
He hesitated. ‘Should I call home to let them know I’ve arrived?’
‘No need. We’ll call on the weekend, when I have time. It’s cheaper, too. I’ll just send a mail to Gopi, that should do.’
‘Okay.’
Kavita gave him what seemed like a million instructions: where things were, how to heat milk in a mug in the microwave, what never to put into it, where there was food in the fridge that could be heated up, how the front door worked (but never to open it, use only the garage door, but she didn’t show him how), to let the answering machine pick up the phone if there were calls. As an afterthought, how the television worked. He knew he would not remember a single thing. Well, she would have to bear the consequences of his errors.
Seven-thirty in the morning, and everyone was gone. There seemed to be nothing like a newspaper, not that he knew much about what was going on in this part of the world, but still. Everyone always said the newspapers at home were far less provincial. Americans tended to be self-obsessed, at least that was the general view. He had never known an American personally, so he could not make that judgement. The coffee had been all right, water and milk and Nescafé. He would need to learn how to use the microwave. Of course, he could ask Rangi or Sunny but it seemed like no one would be around much. Why ask someone to visit when one was barely home, had no time at all?
Had there ever been a time when he was completely alone? He couldn’t remember. Saras was gone, after forty years together. At home, even after Gopi and Leela went away to work, it was somehow different. There were signs of life everywhere: a dog barking, the neighbour’s television on very loudly (were Indians somewhat deaf as a race?), the cries of street vendors, an auto making its guttural way down the street.
Here, the silence was as pure, as clean, as the falling snow. There was something remarkable about it. Of course, Saras would have gone mad, needing her daily fix of Tamil soaps and Indian noises. What would she have done if it had been her here instead of him? Alone all day, and not knowing much English? She would have cooked and cleaned, of course, and made herself useful. But how would she have felt?
He missed his wife. She would have delighted in the snow, like a small child. He would probably have had to restrain her from rushing out and jumping in it. She would have delighted in her only grandchild. She would have delighted even in her daughter, dismissed the images of long-gone childhood, accepting her as she was now. He felt faintly guilty.
The phone rang four times and the machine came on. He could hear his son’s voice. ‘This is Gopi, checking if Appa has arrived.’ By the time he snatched up the phone, disobeying instructions, Gopi had hung up.
Kavita must have forgotten to send the email. Well, he could do nothing about it till the evening. She had left her mobile number but said he wasn’t to call unless it was an emergency.
What constituted an emergency?
He looked at his watch, a gift from his wife for his sixtieth birthday. He had brought it, rather than the battered metal-strapped HMT he had worn most of his life, in some sort of vague homage to Saras, as if bringing it was in some way bringing her. It was seven o’clock in Madras. Gopi and Leela would be watching the news, eating dinner. It would have been good if Kavita had let them know he had arrived safe, saved them some worry.
He had the rest of the day to negotiate. The one thing he couldn’t do was succumb to sleep. He looked around Kavita’s orderly kitchen, somewhat alarmed that he would have to mess it up a bit to get himself some breakfast. He saw the oven-like toaster but didn’t want to risk using it till he had seen how. He ate a couple of slices of plain bread he found in a basket on the counter, then carefully cleared the crumbs with his hands and threw them into the bin under the sink.
His bath was an adventure, without the bucket and mug that he was accustomed to. Luckily, Leela had anticipated the need for a mug. He stood somewhat awkwardly in the tub, collected water mug by mug from the faucet after adjusting its temperature but not before he had received a brief cold blast from the shower. He would get more adept at it. When he was done, he was horrified to find that the entire bathroom floor was wet, the bathmat sodden. Idiot that he was, he had not drawn the shower curtains; he saw what their use was now. Did they go inside the tub or on the outside? Trial and error, trial and error.
Kavita would regret inviting him, probably.
In a minor miracle, he managed to turn the television in the living room on using one of a multiplicity of remotes. The weather channel was on. There were pictures of snowfall in New England, prediction of a few storms in the Chicago area. Typical for this time of year, the weatherman said, his broadcast American accent not too difficult to follow, a few flurries but the weather could vary over almost a hundred degrees, if experience were anything to go by. However, there was a five-day forecast. When there was so much variation possible, how could they predict with such accuracy, surely a lot of it was mere conjecture, mere astrology?
Some days went by. His routine was unvarying as the weather, predictions notwithstanding. He had been out only once, when he had gone with Rangi to the grocery store. Otherwise, it had been just him, all day. There were plans for the weekend to take him downtown but when Saturday came around, nothing was mentioned.
They probably needed to rest after a hectic work week.
They probably thought he lived a quiet life at home so it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to do the same here. Well, that was true, to some extent. But there was his daily walk to the beach, where he liked to sit on one of the cement benches that lined the seafront, chatting with other regulars, taking in (for Madras) the somewhat fresh air. He also read a lot. But he was puzzled to find it difficult to focus on anything here, even Kanigel’s life of Ramanujan, which he had brought from home after some thought, it was such a big book. Maybe it was the complete lack of interaction of any kind. The only bright spot was the time Sunny came home from school. From the initial shyness, he had gradually warmed up to his Thaatha, and seemed to like to spend time with him. After a day or two of this, Kavita said, ‘Sunny, go to your room, do your homework, stop bothering Thaatha.’
‘He’s not bothering me, Kavita.’
‘Appa, no point in him getting close to you. It’s not like you’re going to be living here or anything. I don’t want him to feel bad when you leave.’
‘But I’m here for two months.’
‘Still. Also, since you’ve been here, he’s missed a couple of his Carnatic music lessons. They’re pretty expensive, two-hour phone calls to California, prepaid.’
‘Prepaid music lessons on the phone?’
‘His guru moved.’
He noted the brusque tone. There was something else there. Surely not jealousy? Could one be jealous that one’s parents were close to one’s children?
Things had changed a lot. Or was that how they were done in America? Truth was, one couldn’t blame a place for everything. He had no idea how real Americans lived or thought.
He had always been sceptical when people he knew had come back from the US, complaining of how alone they had felt, even the couples who had each other for company. He had thought it was in their nature as Indians to complain, all the while enjoying the position of being ‘America-returned’ at home. Sort of like the woes of the rich.
But there was something there. Something perhaps that baffled his generation, something they were unprepared for – the foreigners they seemed to have bred. Maybe that explained the growing contingent who preferred to live in India alone, even at a very advanced age. Someone had said south Madras was full of such people, willing to overlook age for independence.