Kanikha

“I guess we should bring her here to stay” said Mohun. “Yes,” said Meera. “You could buy her a ticket and pick her up at the airport. I could collect her if the flight is coming in during the day.”

“You won’t mind?” said Mohun. “She may be difficult to manage. . . .” “I don’t have too much to do now that the children are away. I shan’t mind.”

Meera really didn’t mind. They had never shared the kind of relationships that hundreds of mother-in-law jokes had iconised. Her mother-in-law was a quiet woman. Meera’s one enduring picture of her was bell in hand, praying. The stroke had left the old lady slightly disoriented but she could move around, function normally, and thank god for that.

They co-ordinated schedules, picked dates, Mohun made the necessary calls and in three days time Meera was driving to the airport.

Amma’s grown old was Meera’s first thought when she saw her standing bewildered on the steps of the airport.

“It’s me, Amma,” said Meera gently. The old lady clutched her arm. In the car she whispered, “Who are you?” She still looked blank on hearing Meera’s name, shrinking back in her corner, lips rapidly moving in silent prayer.

Meera showed her to her room and the old lady sat bewildered in the middle of the bed. She was leaving the room when the old lady put out a hand.

“God bless you,” said the old lady. “May god always keep you married.”

“Thank you Amma,” said Meera. The eyes that turned on her seemed to focus for the first time that morning.

“I remember when you came to the house after marriage. You had such tiny hands. Like a doll’s hands. I had to buy children’s bangles to fit you. Red, blue, deep green—you had boxes and boxes full.”

“I don’t like bangles, Amma,” said Meera, wondering what the old lady was rambling about.

“Boxes and boxes. You changed the bangles every day to match your clothes.”

“Not me” said Meera, amused. She hated vast amounts of jingling bangles.

“Such tiny hands,” the old lady muttered. “Such tiny hands you had, Kanikha.”

Kanikha. So Kanikha had had tiny hands and had loved bangles. She had sometimes wondered what she had been like. Mohun rarely talked about her. He had scarcely remembered her by the time he began wooing Meera. Once when she had asked him what Kanikha had looked like he had paused thoughtfully for a long time then said “Pretty, I suppose. I mean, I know I thought she was pretty, but I can’t remember her well enough to know if she really was.”

Mohun came back early and went straight to see his mother. She seemed to recognise him, though she didn’t want to talk. Meera told him all about Amma’s first day.

“She keeps calling me Kanikha,” said Meera. Not that she minded. Kanikha had been dead so long ago. A good seven years before she met Mohun.

“She’s disoriented. The doctor said that her memory was affected, and we really shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I thought people with strokes forgot things,” said Meera.

“She has,” said Mohun. “She’s forgotten you.”

Of course, thought Meera. Why do we presume that people forget only the past and not the present?

The prayer bell woke Meera as usual in the morning. She lay in bed wondering if, caught in her time warp, the old lady was praying for Mohun to get his first contract. She was lost in the replay of a time already lived through. A twinge of sadness moved her to get out of bed and join the old lady in the kitchen. The old lady stopped her bell ringing and smiled at her. “Pray,” she said “Your father will listen. Everything will be all right.”

What did Kanikha want from her father? Meera wondered, intrigued at this little urgency floating up from the past. What would be all right?

That evening Mohun was late from work. “Late again?” said the old lady “He’s working hard. This is his only chance. You’ve married a good man. He’ll provide for you. He’ll be a good husband. But he has to start somewhere. He needs that money. You’ll remember to write the exact amount? Twenty-five thousand rupees.”

“What did you need twenty-five thousand rupees for?” said Meera while Mohun was eating later at night.

He looked blankly at her “What are you talking about?”

“Amma keeps asking me for twenty-five thousand rupees. Was it for that very first factory you set up? The one in the cowshed?”

Mohun looked irritated. “I don’t remember. I suppose so. I wish she would improve. I’ll talk to the doctor tomorrow.”

The next morning Meera found herself floating out of sleep, listening for something. The bell. It was ringing in the kitchen. She joined Amma and watched the old lady at her fervent prayers. The old lady opened her eyes and looked at her anxiously. “You have written? It will come? He’ll be angry otherwise. He’s a good boy but he gets angry. Tell them it’s important. Please. He needs it for the factory.”

“It was for the factory,” said Meera triumphantly at breakfast, pleased at being able to play sleuth.

“I wish you wouldn’t listen to all the nonsense she keeps talking” said Mohun, visibly irritated.

“Why not?” Meera said “You’ve never talked about your early days. It’s wonderfully voyeuristic. I might just discover you were passionately in love with the little girl next door.” Mohun didn’t smile.

Midway through the day she went to sit with the old lady. Amma was praying in the kitchen. When Meera came in she dropped the bell and shrank away from her.

“What’s wrong, Amma?” said Meera wondering anxiously if she was having another stroke. “What is it?”

Amma turned away from her. Her hands pawed the air unevenly. The one affected by the stroke flopped brokenly.

“Go away! Every single day I pray for you. Every day I pray for you to rest in peace. Leave me alone Kanikha, leave me. . . I pray for you. . .” She began to cry, rubbing at her eyes with the hand she found difficult to use.

Shaken, Meera left the old woman in the kitchen. In a moment or two she heard the bell ringing again. It had a frantic note to it.

“She’s getting worse,” Meera said at dinner. “She thinks I’m a ghost.”

Mohun laughed shortly. “Any particular kind of ghost?”

“Kanikha” said Meera. “Her ghost.”

Mohun slammed down his glass. “Kanikha. Kanikha. She’s living more in this house now than when she was alive.”

“Your mother certainly thinks so,” said Meera calmly.

“Tell the old lady to stop it. Don’t let her start,” said Mohun

“Why?” said Meera “Does the thought of Kanikha bother you?”

“No,” said Mohun. “She’s been dead too long. It’s just— creepy.”

“It is,” said Meera. “More creepy for me. I’m hale and hearty and alive, and she keeps insisting I’m dead.”

“I’ll have a talk with her after dinner,” said Mohun. He did sit with his mother for a long time, talking urgently to her in a low voice. But the old lady gave no sign of hearing. Finally Mohun came to bed in a bad mood.

The next morning Meera woke to the sound of the bell, and lay there wondering about Kanikha. It was strange how sud-denly she saw her so clearly. The girl with small hands and a love for bangles. Why would she not rest in peace? The bell rang insistently in the kitchen.

Later in the day Meera paused outside Amma’s door. Going in, she sat beside her putting a hand over the trembling old ones. Amma flinched.

“Leave me alone,” she said. “Leave me alone. Forgive me.” Her voice was a whisper. “I beg of you, forgive me.”

“What is it Amma?” said Meera “What is it I should forgive you for?”

“Forgive him if you cannot forgive me,” said the old lady. “He has a bad temper. Forgive him. I will pray for your rest every day of my life. Do not let his life be spoilt. Forgive him.”

“Well,” said Mohun in the middle of dinner. “What has she been saying today?”

“Nothing,” said Meera. She watched Mohun carefully, looking for the tell-tale crease of tension on his forehead. It was there. “She said nothing today.” The tension eased.

Meera was awake when Amma shuffled down the corridor the next morning. Mohun was lying heavily on his side, breathing deeply. Meera climbed out of bed without waking him.

Amma turned to her wearily when she stood in the doorway.

“Why do you follow me?” said the old lady “I have begged and prayed. I have done you no harm. For twenty-two years I have kept every fast. Leave me alone. It was not me. It was him. Him.” She stopped and put her old hands on her mouth, appalled at her own betrayal.

“Tell me what I should forgive you for?” said Meera. She never thought that she would be so calm. “What is it?”

“He couldn’t help it,” the old lady was babbling. “The money was so little and he needed it so much. He has a bad temper. He always has. I know. I’m his mother. I know.”

“What did you do to me?” said Meera and for a moment she was as terrified as that young girl must have been.

“I did nothing,” whispered the old lady. “It wasn’t me. He locked me out of the kitchen and then I could never go into it again. I couldn’t get the smell out, no matter how I tried. I cooked all the meals in the veranda. You cannot know how hard it was. With all the neighbours avoiding us. Stones thrown against the windows in the night. I could not cry in front of him. I dared not. I dressed up and went out to do the shopping, and held my head up.”

Meera sat beside the old woman as she mumbled and rocked herself back and forth, her old woman’s voice weeping gratingly. Back and forth. Meera put out a hand and stopped the thin body from rocking. The old lady turned a blind tor-tured face to her. “The money came,” she said. “Your parents hadn’t yet got the news. The money came.”

“And he used it?” said Meera.

“Yes,” said the old lady starting to rock back and forth again.

“It is the money you want, isn’t it? It has your blood on it. Everything that came from it has your blood on it.”

Meera got unsteadily to her feet and walked out of the kitchen. She sat at the dining table. What will I do? What will I do? she thought. He is the father of my children. She was ex-hausted from thinking, of going over it again and again. In the kitchen the bell was ringing insanely, on and on. She didn’t want Mohun to wake up. She was terrified.

“I’ve become Kanikha” she thought, as she stared down at her trembling hands. But her hands were too big. As she watched they steadied slowly on the table. She knew she would find the courage to do what had to be done.

The thought came to her. “There is something I must do.” She walked to the kitchen and knelt beside the old lady. She put her hand on the old wrinkled one and stilled the ringing of the bell. “I forgive you, Amma,” she said.