MAUNA STEPPED OUT of the bathroom. Water dripped from her hair. She had beautiful hair, long and soft. When light fell on them, they turned from brown to copper. Besides her eyes, deep-set and with a liquid brightness, they were her only claim to beauty.
Vishwa had once said, ‘Your eyes, they have a personality of their own…’ Mauna smiled. She rubbed her wet hair with the towel and sang, ‘Main boond bani satrang, tumhaare sang piya ho! Main raakh se ban gai aag, tumhaare saath piya ho…’
Ranju entered the bedroom. Mauna looked at him with hazy eyes, her mouth curled in a smile, she was free, fluid, falling at her own will. ‘Mauna—’ Ranju looked at her with careful eyes. The skin on his forehead and temples was taut. ‘There’s been an emergency … Papa … he had to be rushed to the hospital.’
Mauna’s humming stopped. Her song stuck in her throat. She was no longer a rainbow-tinted drop. ‘What happened? Which hospital?’ Her eyes skittered around the room trying to locate something. ‘We … I must go to him.’
‘Mauna—’ Ranju came closer. He stood right in front of her, blocking the door. ‘Mauna, he is no more,’ he said quietly.
Mauna’s eyes narrowed against a blinding glare. The damp towel slipped from her fingers. She felt her body unfurl and jerk like a rope, she fell to the ground. Ranju’s words sounded again and again in the hollows of her ears, again and again, holding no meaning. He is no more. No more. More. More. More. Papa’s voice cut through their hollowness, through their leaden weight. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I am fine, Bachchi. If there’s anything wrong, it’s with your mother. She is scared at every cough, every sneeze. I am writing a poem for her these days. I call it “Ek Dari Hui Stri ka Geet!” It goes like this – “Agar mein khaansa, tum karahi, agar mein chheenka, tum kampakampaii!” It is long, I have to keep adding to it every day!’ Papa is laughing. The phone’s speaker flattens all inflections, but Papa’s laughter, wavering between exasperation and mirth, rolls like waves. Mauna lay still, trying to focus. If she held herself absolutely still, absolutely silent, she’d be able to hear his voice again: ‘Bachchi…’ But the air around her is buzzing with sounds, words are falling like hail around her, she is trembling, trodden like grass. There are footmarks on the grass. ‘Do you see, Bachchi, grass retains your marks momentarily, and then – nothing.’ Her ears hurt. She covers them with the hollows of her hands. She doesn’t want to hear anything any more. No more. ‘He is no more.’ She is falling through. Not like a drop, not like a stone, the air is cutting through her. There is nothing around her, under her. Who is crying? Why are their groans in her throat? Who is touching her, holding her shoulders? She shakes the hands away. Her whole body is a blister, pain-swelled. Do not touch. Do not. The pain collects in a throbbing, choking mass in her chest. She cannot breathe, she cannot be still. Gasping for air, Mauna raised herself on her knees, hating her body for holding her up, hating the breath that caught in her aching lungs but did not stop. She breathed deeply, one long breath after another, hating herself for needing to, wanting to breathe. A sickness just beyond the reach of conscious thought rose to her throat. She struck her head against the bedside table, stuffed her fists in her mouth, bit her knuckles. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no.’ Ranju held her locked in his arms. She breathed through the pain that rose inside her, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. Her mouth filled with a taste she could not identify. Ranju gently lifted her to her feet and helped her to the bed. Mauna sat shaking, holding back nausea. Holding back.
‘Please, I need to go to him,’ she said eventually.
‘Yes, Mauna, I have checked for flights to Jaipur. The earliest is in the morning, at 5.30 a.m.’
‘Morning? I can’t wait until the morning. Please. I have to go to him…’ Ranju put his arm around her and held her; her shoulders went rigid. ‘Let me see. I will try, Mauna.’
‘What happened, Ma?’ Anshumali walked into the room. He had been playing with his friends. His clothes were soaked in sweat, his eyes in confusion. He had her eyes. Her own eyes looked back at her, scared, flickering, anxious. He came closer. ‘What happened?’ She could not bear it. ‘I will go down to the garden. For a walk.’ She rose. Ranju got up too. ‘No, please, I want to go alone. You look after Anshu.’ She hastened away, flinching from their touch.
The garden was dark and full of murmurings, rustlings, susurrations. The path, laid out in red bricks, was cold under Mauna’s bare feet. Papa walked with slow steps, his hands behind his back, his eyes on the trees. ‘Look at that peepul. See how it is clapping its leaves, wavering with laughter. How can one not write a poem about it?’
The peepul wasn’t clapping now. It would never clap again, nor would it tinkle with raindrops, or thrum in a gale. It was just an ordinary tree now, dark and lonely like a ghost, outlined against the moonless sky. Mauna was crying. Tears spilled from her eyes, down her cheeks, soaking her shirt; strands of her hair stuck to her cold cheeks. Every time the tears surged, her body twisted and rocked. She sat under the kewra tree. The scent from the unseen flowers assailed her nose.
‘Some things belong to the nights. Like the fragrance of kewra flowers. Your mother says kewra trees are infested with serpents at night. Snakes flock to them, attracted by their fragrance. I tell her such discerning snakes are my brothers, I tell her to come and join me in enjoying the perfumed air too. In fact, there are no snakes, Bachchi, just the fragrance, undulating like a snake, overwhelming, mesmerizing.’
Mauna rested her head against the dry bark. There was a sharp yelp. A ghostly white cat was fighting something invisible among the dark shrubs. Ranju came up the garden steps. ‘It is impossible tonight. I have tried charter planes, too, but their flight plans need to be filed hours in advance. There’s no option but to wait until morning.’ He took Mauna’s arm. They walked back towards their home.
‘Has Anshu had his dinner? And you? I want Anshu to come too.’
‘If you wish. Though, usually, at such times, children don’t accompany…’
‘Papa would like to see him. He must go to him one last time.’ Mauna cleared her throat. ‘I’ll have to go to the office for a little while. I need to make sure everything is taken care of, all open matters handed over. I don’t know when I will be back…’ Ranju put his arm around her.
‘Mauna, you know you don’t need to do this. I can call Steve and inform him. I am sure he will understand.’
Mauna removed Ranju’s arm gently and opened the door. Her eyes, nose and mouth were red and swollen. There was a large bruise on her forehead, above her left eyebrow. ‘I need to do this myself. Steve can’t handle it all from Singapore. I have to ensure there are no loose ends. It isn’t as if I will be gone for a day or two…’ She breathed slowly. There wasn’t enough air in her lungs.
Anshu was sitting on the bed, his thin legs dangling, a book open on his knees. His eyes, hers, were moist, and his mouth had a downward curve.
‘Anshu, give Ma a hug.’
Anshu put his thin, bony arms around Mauna. She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard. She caressed his hair, his trembling shoulders, his shaking back. ‘Beta, could you reach down the suitcases from the loft? We need to pack.’ Anshu buried his head into her shoulder.
‘The car is here, Mauna.’ Ranju entered. Mauna gently removed Anshu’s arms from around her.
The bright colours in her closet hurt her eyes. She rummaged at the back.
‘You’d need white clothes. If you don’t have suitable clothes, I can…’
‘Nothing’s suitable any longer when Papa…’ Mauna’s throat constricted painfully. She busied herself with packing.
‘I’ll be back. You stay here with Anshu,’ she said.
The suitcases were packed. She had changed and combed her hair. Anshu was staring at his book. Ranju closed his laptop and rose. ‘I am coming with you.’ He touched Anshu’s shoulder. ‘Anshu, go to bed, please. I will bring your mummy back soon.’
Mauna lowered the window on her side as they sped through the empty streets. The cold November air dried her tears as they fell.
In her office, Mauna switched on the computer. While she worked, she was in a quiet place. The knell of the words resounding in her ears receded. At one end of her table was a photograph of Papa. He is holding a book in his hand, a finger marking the page he was reading from a moment ago. His eyebrows are slightly raised, his glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose. The smile hidden in his beard shines clear in his eyes. He is reading a poem aloud to Mummy, who is sitting in her chair just outside the camera’s frame. The mild, tree-filtered winter sunlight is streaming through the window with the fragrance of his favourite harsingar. Soon Mummy will remind him that it is noon, and he still hasn’t bathed. ‘You married a poet, dharmpatni,’ he would say. ‘You ought to know that a good poem cleanses the soul, but all you keep harping upon is cleaning this mortal body!’
Mauna turned her computer off, locked her office and left the key in an envelope on her assistant’s desk.
Ranju was speaking into his mobile in the lobby of the building. ‘Mauna is okay, she is holding up. We will reach by eight in the morning, Jijo sa. We’ll be well in time for all the ceremonies. In any case, you and Kako sa are there, we depend on you completely, you’ll have to guide us…’
On the way back, Ranju asked, ‘You’d like to speak to Mummy, Mauna?’
Mauna turned her now dry eyes towards Ranju. What was there to talk to about? All conversations were always about him:
‘He doesn’t follow the doctor’s advice, won’t take his medicine on time and refuses to go for a walk. All he wants is to eat mithai and stay up half the night reading old books or scribbling … You speak to him, Mauna, I am at the end of my patience.’
‘What is left for her to say, dharmpatni? You have already said all there is to say, in fact, several times! Bachchi, now she is upset with me for laughing. In this house, I am not only not allowed to eat or sleep as I wish but also not allowed to laugh!’
Anshu was still awake, sitting hunched over his book in his bed. Mauna took the book from his hands and gently straightened his tense limbs. She sat beside him, stroking his forehead and temples, until his eyes drooped.
The kitchen was dark. The door of the servant’s room was shut. Rekha had gone to bed. Mauna switched on the light. A pot of yoghurt set for the next day cooled under the open window and washed utensils stood on the draining board. Mauna emptied the yoghurt into the sink and rinsed the pot. She counted the money in the papier-mâché cash box; there was enough to pay the bills for milk and newspaper falling due next week. The box was smooth, its rounded sides fitted in the curve of her cupped palms. Papa had brought it back from his trip to Kashmir.
‘It seems fitting, Bachchi: paper money in a paper box, in the paper-world of paper dolls.’
She opened the fridge and checked the perishables – fruits, vegetables, milk. All would need to be given away. Perhaps Rekha could take them for her family.
‘Bhai Bachchi, your mother treats me like a child now that both you and your sister are not here. All day she is after me – bathe, eat vegetables, drink milk, go to bed. Who could say, from tomorrow she might force me to go to a school instead of to the university! To outsiders, I am a learned professor; to her, I am a recalcitrant child. You must come back home and put an end to all this, or I will have to go on a long pilgrimage.’
She was going back tomorrow morning, once this night was over. Mauna turned the lights off and touched her own tear-soaked face with trembling fingers.
Ranju was sleeping flat on his back, snoring softly. Quietly, Mauna lay on her side of the bed and waited.
THE FLIGHT LANDED on time. Outside, the crisp cold air had the familiar dry woodsmoke-and-dust smell. It woke Mauna’s numb body up. Winter had arrived. It will continue to arrive year after year in Papa’s absence.
‘It is the promises winter makes that keep the heart warm, Bachchi, not your sweaters and shawls. The promise that everything will last longer, that flowers will hold their colours and fragrances longer, and days their freshness. Everything is experienced more sharply, more clearly in winters.’
Mauna zipped Anshu’s jacket up to his chin. ‘Ma, Nanu…’ Anshu held on to Mauna’s cold hand in the car.
The house-door stood open. There was a jumble of slippers and shoes on the front step and bunches of incense sticks stuck in the flowerpots. Smoke rose in slow spirals. There were young men and women in the porch. Papa’s students.
‘Dharmpatni, until this cold wave lasts, I am reviving the gurukul tradition. No one can enjoy poetry in the stone-cold rooms in the department. Get some tea made. The class will be held right here, under the sun on the lawn!’ Mauna held on to the door. Her hands slipped on its icy surface and she staggered. Everything seemed cloudy, out of focus. Papa was lying on the floor. Under a single thin quilt. In this cold weather. Why isn’t there a mattress? And a pillow? Is there a pillow under his head? Who is moaning? Quiet. You will wake him up. Papa … ‘Mauna, don’t do this, Mauna … Pull yourself together, laado. Get up now, look at your mother. You have to take care of her, beta…’ Mauna freed herself from the encircling arms.
‘Let me go, Mami sa, I am all right.’ She sat up straight. ‘Let me see him.’
Papa lay silent under the quilt, unmoving. She lifted the quilt off his face. He looked as he always did while sleeping – the creases on his forehead soft, his eyes and mouth closed firmly. ‘I am always serious when I am dreaming, Bachchi. One should dream seriously and take the rest of one’s life playfully.’ Mauna caressed his soft salt-and-pepper hair, his beard, the thin papery skin of his face, his shoulders. He is not here, not in this house, not under this quilt, even while her hands touch him. He is nowhere. The footsteps on grass, peepul leaves, winter. He is nowhere. Mauna bit her lip until her body stopped shaking. He is gone. Slowly, carefully, she covered his face again.
‘Mauna is here, Bai sa. Look, she is here, and Anshu and Kunwar sa.’ Mami sa gently shook Mummy. Mummy slumped further in her chair, her eyes tightly shut. Her moans made Mauna’s body prickle. Naina jiji sat surrounded by women, her hair in tangles, her face swollen, crying soundlessly. Anshu crouched beside her, his head dipping between his shoulders. Mauna rose. ‘Go to your Nani sa, Anshu.’
Ranju stood amid the knot of relatives discussing funeral arrangements. ‘At least eleven pundits, plus a party of bhajan singers. I have called our Guru ji. He will guide us about all the rituals that need to be performed over the next twelve days.’
‘Jijo sa, Papa was against all these rituals. What he didn’t believe in all his life, I won’t let anyone do in his name.’
‘Mauna…’ Ranju frowned.
‘Kako sa, please call Vedpathi ji from Arya Samaj. He will ensure everything is done simply and according to the Vedic ways. That is what Papa would like. Shanti vaachan, ved mantra…’ Her throat filled up.
‘You are right, beti, Bhai sa used to call the pundits bund-bhoosund. He used to say feeding idle priests is the surest way to purgatory. We should do what he would have wished, though he is beyond all this now…’ Kako sa’s eyes brimmed.
‘Don’t delay it, please. We need to take him before midday. He didn’t like the afternoon sun, even during winters…’
‘Don’t force me to go anywhere while the sun is straddling the sky, Bachchi. The noonday sun can darken the very deer in the forest. Come, sit here with me and watch the shade slowly paint the garden and the house-walls blue. If you are very still, you can hear the sunlight drawing back gradually, like a crisp sheet being pulled off.’
Mauna went inside the house.
In the kitchen, Shantibai ji and Kamala were squatting on the floor, sniffling and crying. ‘Baby sa, Mauna baby sa…’ Shantibai ji embraced her and wept. ‘Baby sa, we lost our roof and pillar, our tree fell. We are orphans … who will look after us now…’ The stale-smelling kitchen resounded with her wails.
Shantibai ji had looked after Naina jiji and Mauna since they were babies. She had cried bitterly when, one after the other, they both got married and left the city. She religiously prepared parcels of ghevar and lac bangles for Teej-gangaur and pots and toys made of sugar for Karva-chauth for couriering to them. At Anshu’s birth, she insisted on performing the ritual to ward off bad eye with handfuls of salt, chillies and mustard seeds. Her complaints about their being married off so far were bitter and always directed at Papa. ‘How little you loved them to marry them off across the seas and blind distance away … They can’t even come home during the months of rain when all daughters return.’
‘Bachchi, if you ever decide to contest elections, don’t forget to take Shantibai ji along for campaigning. You won’t find a stauncher supporter than her and you will also do me a big favour – every day she remembers something or other about you and looks daggers at me for sending you so far away. You should come back just to protect me from her barbs!’
‘Shantibai ji, you have grey hair. What are you doing, sitting here crying instead of taking care of Mummy? Do you want me to wipe your tears and rock you like a baby? Come, make some tea. Everyone has been awake the whole night. Kamala, fill a hot-water bottle for Naina bai sa. Her back must be stiff like a board from sitting on the bare floor.’
Shantibai ji rose groaning, her hands on her knees. She wept as she heated the water in the electric kettle.
‘Wipe your tears.’ Mauna’s voice was dry, her swollen mouth twisted in unfamiliar ways to form familiar words. ‘We will have to wipe our own tears every day, as long as we live.’
Kamala spread mattresses in the living room and Mauna fetched pillows and bolsters. She slipped the hot-water bottle behind Naina jiji’s back. ‘Jiji, please … Drink some tea. There’s a lot to do today.’
‘Mauna…’ Naina jiji whispered hoarsely, ‘Mauna…’ She collapsed on Mauna’s lap.
‘Jiji, pyaari jiji, please have some tea,’ Mauna said coaxingly, stroking her back and shoulders.
‘You understand the laws of waxing and waning, Bachchi, of light and shadows. Naina doesn’t. Things have to hold constant for her, always revealed, always bright. You are actually the older one, you just happened to come after her…’
Finally, Naina jiji sat up and began to sip tea. Mauna took a cup to Mummy. Shantibai ji was pressing her feet, stopping every few seconds to wipe her eyes and blow her nose on her odhna. Mauna sent her away and sat on the floor near Mummy’s feet, leaning her head against her knees. Slowly, Mummy’s hand moved. She caressed Mauna’s hair, her cheek, with fluttering fingers.
‘Take Mummy inside, Jiji. She has sat up the whole night, she must get some rest. Only you can make her.’ Mummy had merely touched the cup of tea to her lips and had retched, her body rejecting everything but grief. Naina jiji rose slowly, stiffly. ‘I will see to things here.’ In fact, there was nothing to see to any more. No tea to be made and carried to the garden, no books to be brought out, no poetry to be recited. Papa wasn’t there. He had left without a word to her, without taking leave. How could he?
‘Travellers don’t say goodbye, Bachchi. Who can tell whether the nomad is arriving or departing?’
Mauna fetched a fresh set of clothes from his almirah, crisply starched. Socks too. He has sensitive feet. And a comb for his soft, thick hair. ‘Your mother constantly accuses me of vanity. Can I help it if my hair is beautiful, Bachchi? The only one who has more beautiful hair is you!’
Vedpathi ji and others had arrived. ‘We have everything we need, beti. You go in. This last service is for us to render…’ Vedpathi ji and Kako sa both wept as they took the bucket of warm water from Kamala’s hands for the ritual bath.
‘Please wait a moment. Let me get Papa’s cologne. His bath won’t be complete without…’ She went into the house.
Papa was laid on a bier, tied with the red-and-yellow mauli thread. His students had piled the bier high with roses and marigolds.
‘Harsingar and mogra, only two fragrant flowers are meant for me. The rest cause me to sneeze and your mother to panic. It is a mercy that I am not allergic to colours, else she would paint the whole world black and white!’
Mauna bent before him and laid a handful of harsingar blossoms on his feet. He didn’t like anyone touching his feet. ‘What’s this? You are checking if I have washed my feet properly?! Bachchi, bending and bowing are mere movements of the gross body, the sookshm deh doesn’t need this ostentation of regard.’
There was a crowd around the flower-decked bier. So many wanted to lift it on their shoulders in symbolic farewell. A bamboo pole rested for a moment on Anshu’s thin shoulder. His legs shook and buckled, Naina jiji’s sons stepped forward and gathered him in their arms. Mauna followed Papa out the gate.
‘Na, na, Mauna bai sa’ – Mangal bhai sa stopped her – ‘you can’t go to the shmashan. Women are not allowed there.’
‘Papa used to take me everywhere he went, Bhai sa.’ Mauna opened the door of the car directly behind the van carrying the bier. ‘I will go with him.’
‘Mauna, you must respect the rituals. You can’t have your way in everything,’ Ranju said in a brittle voice.
Mauna glanced at him. Her way? Nothing was her way. Papa left, was leaving, will be gone. She got into the car and stared ahead in silence. The coral and pearl placed in Papa’s mouth, as fee for the God of Death to make his passage easy, gleamed softly in the winter sunlight.
At the cremation ground, Papa was laid on the pyre. Pale, golden mango and sandalwood were placed on him. His body was lost among the shining wood. Naina jiji’s elder son lit the pyre with a bundle of dry twigs, and dropping them, fell to his knees, hiding his face in his hands. The wood crackled and threw up showers of orange sparks, long ribbons of flame. Mauna took a long-stemmed wooden ladle and poured ghee in the flames which were returning Papa to the five elements, releasing his soul, sealing her away from him forever. Tears fell in the ghee consecrated with mantras. Amidst the chanting and weeping, while the world around wavered and trembled through the smoke, Papa disappeared. Only later, while bathing after returning from the cremation ground, did Mauna realize that the heat from the pyre had raised blisters on her arm. Water felt like fire on them.
In the evening, Mauna unpacked her suitcase in her old bedroom. Ranju was to stay at Kako sa’s place with other male relatives. He had insisted Anshu sleep there as well after the ritual first meal. ‘You insisted he should come. He must learn to follow the traditions.’
Mauna took her phone out. There were condolence messages from co-workers, neighbours, acquaintances. A message from Vishwa too: ‘In your city ☺ Looking for you at every turn.’
Vishwa and Mauna used to work for the same company, though not in the same department; they would occasionally come across each other in meetings or in the cafeteria. There was a feeling of connectedness, a nameless warmth that made Mauna smile involuntarily. She remained on her guard and avoided him. When she learned that Vishwa had resigned and joined another company, she told herself it was a relief.
They had met accidentally at an industry event and had spent the evening chatting. ‘I don’t want to lose sight of you again,’ Vishwa had said, ‘we aren’t colleagues any more…’ But what they were, remained unsaid. Their connection left Mauna conflicted. She pretended not to see the obvious. They continued to meet, for coffee or a meal, or for a run along the Worli sea-face, an occasional show.
She put away her phone and went into the hall to lay pattal for the Kadva Gras. Everyone must eat this first meal off peepul leaves, bitter with grief, on the day of the funeral, learn to eat it every day without Papa, to nourish the body, to go on living without him.
The women slept on mattresses spread on the floor in the hall. Mauna massaged Mummy’s forehead and temples gently with almond oil. She felt the veins throb and beat like birds under her fingers. Mummy fell into an uneasy sleep by Naina jiji’s side. Papa was in this room in the morning. Some earth was sprinkled where he had lain last and a diya burned, its thin flame trembling. Mauna rose. Carefully threading her way through the sleeping forms, she went inside the house.
The phone rang on the other side a few times before Vishwa answered. ‘Mauna? At this time? All well?’ He sounded sleepy.
‘Papa passed away, Vishwa.’
‘Oh god … when? What happened?’
‘Yesterday evening. Heart attack.’
‘God … Were you able to see him? Are you in Jaipur?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had no idea when I messaged you today…’
‘Yes.’
‘I am in Jaipur for the research conference. Tell me, is there anything I can do? Anything at all?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing seems to need doing now. I sent him off this morning.’
‘I don’t know how to say what I really want to say … You must have been awake all of last night, get some rest please. Could I call you tomorrow?’
‘I will call.’
‘We can talk now, too, if you like.’
‘No, you should sleep.’
‘You won’t forget to call tomorrow? I will wait.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mauna…’
‘Bye, Vishwa.’
Mauna wrapped a shawl around her and quietly stepped out. In the last few years, Papa had planted a variety of trees in the small front-garden – custard apple, pomegranate, guava, a couple of slender gooseberry ones.
‘Grass is a wasteful luxury in the desert, Bachchi. It drinks litres and litres of water and all it yields is a feeling of smugness from feeding a barren hobby. Now, these trees feed and shelter all sorts of birds. Look at those sparrows and barbets, they sing and fight all day long, like you and Naina used to, and the mynahs and bulbuls are busier than your mother. I am that old crow. See how he roosts comfortably in the neem tree and watches the world go by – Ram jharokhe baith ke sabka mujra lait!’
Papa’s harsingar was perfuming the night-air. Its rough-leafed branches were full of tiny, star-like flowers. Mauna sat on the garden step until the shadows turned grey and began fading, morning-light bled from the sore in the sky. Her shawl and hair were wet with dew when she finally went into the house to rouse Shantibai ji.
The men got ready to return to the cremation ground in the morning, Ranju and Anshu among them. They must gather what remained from yesterday’s all-consuming fire and take it for immersion into the Ganga. Mauna quietly arranged offerings of sweet rice, curds and sweetmeats in leaf bowls and platters. They were for the Gods ruling the ten directions, so they help the soul departing on its last, arduous journey. She also packed cotton mats, utensils, blankets, clothes and shoes to give to the Mahabrahmans who lived off the offerings made for the dead.
‘Just see the irony, Bachchi! Mahabrahmans are otherwise shunned, they aren’t invited for feasts or to perform rituals on holy days; but when someone dies, they are treated like kings. Nothing’s too much for them, as if the debt of an entire lifetime of neglect is to be repaid upon death so they agree to take the sins of the dead upon themselves. Truly blind are we, in our blind selfishness!’
In the evening, Papa’s ashes were brought home briefly, before the men left with them for Haridwar. The clay pitcher containing them, its mouth sealed tight with a red cloth, was placed on the marble bench in the garden where Papa liked to sit every evening. When the ashes are immersed in the holiest of all rivers, at the place made sacred by its first contact with this mortal earth, it will be the final farewell; the spirit will be set free in the timeless forever, never to return. Mauna will never, as long as she lived, hear Papa’s voice again or see him stroke his shell-white feet, or touch his beard with her fingertips. Bowing in obeisance before the asthi-kalash, Mummy collapsed. Naina jiji struck her forehead against the marble armrest. Piercing cries scared away the bulbuls and barbets returning to their nests in the neem tree.
Mami sa brought the large, hardbound Ramcharitmanas out and placed it before Mummy on a wooden bookrest. Mauna sat close to her and began reading the ‘Sundarkand’. Mummy’s lips moved soundlessly at the familiar verses describing Hanuman’s encounter with a frail, desperate Sita, her eyes drooped with fatigue. Mauna coaxed her to drink a glassful of hot milk boiled with turmeric and dates. At last, Mummy and Naina jiji, along with Kaki sa and others, lay on the mattresses in the hall, exhausted, heavy with grief. Mauna helped Shantibai ji and Kamala roll up the durries and mats, and stow them away in the storeroom at the back of the house along with the leaf-platters and ghee, the unused groceries and spices. The diya from last night was burning low; she replenished it with ghee, trimmed its wick, and turned the lights off.
The night seemed denser than yesterday. The filigreed shadows of gooseberry and pomegranate trees were indistinguishable in the dark. Harsingar flowers gleamed and dropped, shaken loose by cold, stray breezes. On the marble bench where the asthi-kalash had stood earlier in the evening, there was a faint mark, a ring of ashes. Mauna took her phone out of the kurta-pocket.
‘Mauna, at last … I have thought about you the whole day. How are you? Don’t answer that if you don’t want to.’
‘I am standing under the harsingar tree, Vishwa. Perhaps its fragrance will take away the smell of smoke from my hair, my clothes, my body.’
‘Mauna…’
‘Harsingar blossoms are falling on me. I can smell them despite the smell of burning on my skin, in my nostrils. I want to feel them on my skin and crush them against my breasts. Do you remember when we met at that conference after months?’
‘Mauna, honey, this is hardly the right time, but you know what I feel … about you…’
‘These blossoms only bloom for a night. You had asked if you could do anything for me.’
‘Of course.’
‘Could you come over?’
‘Come over? Now?’
‘Yes, right now.’
‘Mauna, are you sure?’
‘Come. Everyone’s asleep. Just the harsingar and I…’ Mauna’s throat filled. The flowers, their saffron stems loosely attached to the branches, continued to fall. ‘I will message you the address.’
Mauna opened the door of the storeroom and turned the light-switch on. In the feeble light of a single bulb, the room was full of dull shadows. She climbed on top of the big trunk and pushed open the latticed ventilators. The fragrance of harsingar floated in. She pulled out a colourful durrie from the mound of mats and, pushing the vat of ghee and sacks of grocery closer to the wall, spread it on the floor. She went back to the main gate and waited. At the soft thud of a car door closing, she opened the gate.
‘Mauna…’ They couldn’t see each other in the dark. Mauna took his hand and led him to the back of the house.
She closed the door of the storeroom and turned towards him. In the dim, yellow light, Vishwa finally saw her – her hair was pulled back in a bun, her swollen eyes washed clean of kohl, the bruise on her forehead tender. Her lilac kurta was crumpled and stained with dew. Her frail arms hung by her side. He welled up. Pulling her close, he folded her in his arms. Mauna winced slightly when he pressed her to him. He pulled out the long pin holding her hair and kissed her deeply, his palm trailing down her neck and back. ‘Mauna…’ His breath fell on her, stirring the soft hair on her temples. ‘Mauna…’ His fingers fluttered on the buttons of her tunic. Mauna shut her eyes tightly as he lowered her on to the bright carpet. The bright reds and oranges flamed around her slender body. He knelt beside her, kissing her breasts, caressing her stomach, navel, thighs. ‘Mauna, honey…’ sounded like a chant in her ears. Her eyes closed, she felt around and dipped her fingers in the large vat standing against the wall. Vishwa smelt it before he felt the drops trickling down his back. She had anointed their now intertwined bodies with the ritual ghee.