The Last Parlour

“The Last Parlour”, reads the board at the entrance to the room. For someone who has never been to a real parlour all her life, it seems a paradox of sorts that a parlour should be the last place I should visit! I float alongside myself as they wheel me into the room. It feels strange that what had been a single identity a few hours ago, has split into two now. One is me, who is lying motionless on the stretcher and the other is me who is floating with myself. Did that confuse you or did you find that funny? I thought that was funny. But I never thought I was capable of saying such silly things, or laugh at my own jokes! Maybe situations such as these bring out your funny side! Again, it’s a pity I had to wait this long to bring out that side of me.

Someone, probably a ward boy, fishes out a tag that says ‘1729’ and slips it on my left toe. There are two more people accompanying us, perhaps helpers. From the stretcher that has been my bed until now, they lift and park me in the cold storage of the morgue. It amuses me to think how I, who had been Ratna, until a few hours ago, have suddenly been elevated to the status of a ‘body’, and now, I am a mere number.

The ACs in the room tells me I’m supposed to be feeling cold, but I am not. And I’m sure the ‘me’ who is lying inside that huge chest isn’t feeling cold either. That way, I have hated ACs all my life. The men are speaking to someone outside – ah, my daughter. I can tell she’s weeping, and I’m supposed to feel bad that she is upset, but I don’t. She’s waking towards the chest and one of the men pull it out. My daughter looks at my lifeless body and caresses my face. More tears run down her cheeks, and I know I should want to wipe them, but I don’t. I just look. And then, they all walk out, locking the door, leaving me alone with myself.

I want to look at myself now. It’s strange, I have never looked at myself from outside. No, I realise that that’s not entirely true, I have. I have looked at myself in the mirror before, but what I see now is different. I don’t even have to pull the chest out, I can just slide in, but look at the irony, the door to my body is closed. I cannot enter it again. How often have I wasted time trying to open shut doors not bothering about entering the one that was always open. And now try as I might, this door that was always open, is closed and funnily enough all other doors are open and I no longer care about entering them.

I look at myself and wonder if this is really me? I observe the black marks under my eyes and think of all the sleepless nights I’ve spent worrying. I realise how futile that was. I look at my ears - the golden studs are gone. Those were my favourite. How did I even think, I would be able to take them along? I look at my nose – they are wide, visible signs of a tube having fed me all these days. The upturned nose, no longer so. In the end, all it served was to feed me - food, not my ego.

The night passes quickly than I anticipate. The door opens again and this time there’s a stream of visitors. They’ve all come to see me – the me, that’s inside the chest. They look, they weep, they speak comforting words to my daughter, they tell her what a wonderful person I was. I wish they’d said that to me when I was still alive. But again, I don’t think I have said that to any person who was alive either. See? I’m being funny again. Their affection wants me to feel happy, but I can’t. I just look. I float about, looking at people, unable to feel their pain.

Again, it’s time for me to move. People shift me from the chest to the stretcher and then to a van. I float in, hovering above myself. There’s more crying. Many people leave, bidding me goodbye. Some accompany me.

We reach someplace and they shift me from the van to pyre. Moments later, I can see myself burning, but that sight doesn’t move me. Slowly, they leave, one by one. At last, my daughter leaves too. I realise that this is the farthest they can accompany me. I’m on my own now. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next. I just watch the embers glow golden and keep watching till they turn red and finally grey. 

One of my identities is gone. I remain.

  

Together?

Mai looked at Neha, tears clouding her vision. The red dupatta covering her daughter’s head shimmered in the sunlight.

“Mai, I want a garland of baby pink roses for my wedding,” Neha had chirpily told her a few years ago.

Mai looked at garland of baby pink roses nestling cozily around her neck, together with the black beaded mangalsutra resting on her bosom. The mehendi was prominently missing though. There had been no time for it anyway.

Sanjay, her son-in-law, looked good next to her. Finally, Neha had got her wish fulfilled. She had been in love with Sanjay for the past two years, and had been trying hard to convince her Mai and Baba for the wedding.

“Sanjay is a Koli,” her baba had argued, “Are you going to live with the fishermen and eat fish? Don’t forget we are Konkanastha.”

Mai had even threatened to kill herself if Neha kept persisting with her demand. She had once consumed half a glass of floor cleaner to impose her will upon Neha. She had been hospitalized and had recovered but it had scared Neha enough never to talk about Sanjay again.

But Mai hadn’t realized how depressed Neha had been after that. She had hardly been eating or sleeping well. Today, as she looked at Neha’s face, she saw ugly black circles around her pretty eyes. Her cheeks were sunken and she seemed to have lost a lot of weight.  

“Baala, my baby, I wish I had noticed this earlier,” she said to herself, wiping her eyes with the end of her saree. Mai looked at Baba and knew he had been crying too.

It was Sanjay’s mother who had finally talked them into getting the two married. 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take them long to get convinced this time though.  Baba had agreed almost immediately.

“Ata, lagna sampanna jhala…” said the bhatji. (The wedding rituals have been completed.)

Everyone present threw flowers and confetti on the couple.

And then a wave of loud wailing filled the air.

“Ata, antim sanskaarchi vidhi…” announced another bhatji. (Let’s begin the ceremony for the deceased)

Sanjay and Neha lay side by side, unaware that their corpses had been wed by their families. Neha had been unable to bask in the fragrance of the garland of baby pink roses. Sanjay had not known how his limp hand had been used to tie the mangalsutra around Neha’s cold body. They would never know that their deaths had not been in vain. They would not know that at least in the end they were together.

It had all been a little too less, a little too late.

( based on a true story)

Token no 22.

As they walked hand in hand, Suma thought they looked every inch like a much-in-love ‘just married’ couple. She looked exuberant - red bangles jingling on her wrist, henna on her palms and bright red vermillion adorning the partition of her hair. She looked at Mahesh and smiled as they climbed the steps to the sub-registrar’s office. As she bent down to gather the pleats of her saree that she was so not used to wearing, Mahesh rolled his eyes, a smirk on his scrawny face. Entering the small office room, he seated Suma on the wooden bench and approached the counter to submit his form.

Sitting on the bench, Suma brought her palms together and smelt the still-fresh aroma of henna on them. She smiled as she thought about her wedding with Mahesh two days ago. She had never thought she would have a simple temple wedding.

Her elder sister had had a grand wedding. Their small house had been decorated with colourful blinking lights and flowers. Her parents had organized a feast for their relatives who had come from villages far away and for the people in their chawl. What a celebration that had been! The younger of two daughters, Suma had always been the apple of her father’s eye. Her father had brought her a pink and orange ghagra that had been way beyond his means. She guessed it must have cost more than her sister’s wedding saree and was secretly pleased about it in a way only siblings can understand!

For her own wedding however, she had to be content wearing the plain red saree she had worn when she had left home. Mahesh had brought her the auspicious red bangles for the wedding and that somehow brought her more happiness than an expensive saree could have.

Mahesh had promised to buy her clothes today, and as she looked at him, she saw a nervous boy who was yet to be man - chewing his nails, unshaven, with his hair falling all over his face. She ran her hand across his hair, putting stray strands in place and he looked at her and smiled, perhaps for the first time that morning.

‘Nervous?’ she asked him.

‘Very’, he replied reaching out to take her hand in his.

They sat in silence again and he absently drew imaginary concentric circles on the bright orange ball of henna at the center of her palm.

‘Everything will be okay. Baba loves me the most. I am sure he will forgive me and accept us,’

‘I hope so,’ he nodded breathing out long puffs of air, trying to relax.

‘Your parents are coming too, aren’t they?’ she asked.

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘Token number 7, Ramesh Babu…’ called the clerk and a man sitting behind them hurried inside the sub-registrar’s office.

‘What’s our number?’ asked Suma.

‘22’

‘So we have ample time. I hope our parents will be here by then.’

‘This could have been done later, there’s so much crowd today and heat is unbearable,’ he sulked.

‘Bear with it for a little while, Mahesh, once the marriage is registered no one will try to separate us.’

‘A temple wedding is sufficient proof that we are married, Suma. Don’t you trust me? Do you think I will run away?’

‘Shhh…stop behaving like a child,’ she said landing a light slap on his thigh.

‘I agreed to this drama, but why did you have to call the parents? Anything could go wrong. What if your father takes you away?’

‘We are already married, he will never do that, trust me.’

They sat in silence again, each lost in their own thoughts, unmindful of the noise around them. She wondered what her parents would say. She had called them up in the morning to tell them that she had married Mahesh and she was registering their marriage later that day. 

‘Ma, will you come? Will you bring Baba? Will you both forgive and bless us?’  

Her mother had slammed the phone down without saying a word. She tried to imagine what would have happened after that. Would her mother have wailed out loud cursing her daughter? Would her father be angry with her? Would he understand? Would he turn up to bless them?  If they forgave her, they would surely come.

She wondered what Mahesh was thinking, but dared not ask. He could be quite temperamental - sweet and cuddly one moment, and angry for no reason, the very next. He was already unhappy with her decision to register their marriage and had been quite unhappy with the thought of meeting both the set of parents. He had slapped her couple of times yesterday, but it had been her fault, hadn’t it? She hadn't served him lunch in time and had burnt the daal too. With time she would learn to cook and do it in time too, she promised herself. 

But that was not why she had insisted on registering their marriage. She had seen what had happened to her friend Urmi. Urmi had married Shravan secretly and one fine day, he ran away. By the time a pregnant Urmi traced him out, he was already married again, and she had no proof she had been married to him. Shravan had even refused to recognize her. She trusted Mahesh enough to know he would never do that to her, but she didn’t want to leave anything to chance too.

‘Token Number 15…’ she heard the clerk calling.

No sign of the parents.

Her eyes had almost welled up with tears, thinking they wouldn’t come, but then she saw her mother. Her eyes flooded anyway, but this time there were tears of happiness. She stood up, her knees wobbly, her heart racing, and eyes looking out for her father. Her mother walked up to her, and even as Suma turned to give her a hug, her mother landed a hard slap across her face. Everyone turned to look at her.

‘How could you do this, you ungrateful, selfish girl?’ she thundered. ‘Didn’t you think of us? Didn’t you think of your father? Do you know how shattered he is? I had warned him not to give you so much freedom. But he loved you the most. He trusted you completely. We have done so much for you and this is how you reward us? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You don’t exist for us anymore.’

Suma stood as if she had turned to stone, cheeks burning red with shame and pain.

‘Aunty…’ Mahesh stood up, interfering in between.

‘I’m not even talking to you, you ba***d. Shut your mouth or I’ll slap you too.’

‘How dare you….’ screamed Mahesh, tightening his fist and threatening to punch her face.

‘You will hit ME?’ screamed her mother, ‘Come, let’s see how you do it,’ she threatened. ‘This is the rascal you chose over your parents?’ she said accusingly to Suma before storming out of the hall.

Suma threw a shocked looked at Mahesh and ran out after her mother. Her father was waiting in the corridor outside with a few men from their chawl. One of them signaled for Mahesh to come out and he reluctantly joined them.

‘Baba…’ cried Suma, falling at his feet, ‘forgive me Baba, I shouldn’t have…’she sobbed, ‘but I love him.’

‘What did you see in him, he cannot even respect your mother, tell him to ask for forgiveness,’ said Bhaskar kaka, their neighbour.

‘Mahesh, ask for forgiveness, please…’ she begged her husband.

Mahesh waved her off with a flick of his wrist, making a grunting sound of refusal.

‘Where will you keep my daughter? Do you have a home or do you live on the street?’ asked her father.

‘I’m not a beggar to live on the road,’ he barked back, ‘I know how to take care of my wife.’

‘Mahesh…’ screamed Suma, shocked at way he was speaking to her parents.

‘Don’t chide me,’ he said turning to her, and gritting his teeth, ‘tell you parents to stop talking to me like that.’

Mahesh walked away and stood at a distance, refusing to look at them. Her father got ready to leave, his men in tow.  

‘Baba, Ma…can’t we forget all that and be civil to one another?

‘Ha…you marry a scavenger and expect us to be civil?’ mocked her mother.

‘Ma, I beg you,’ she prayed.

‘Exactly…that is what he will make you do!’

Everyone stood in silence once more, while Suma crumbled to the ground crying, burying her face in her hands.

Just then Mahesh’s parents walked in. They spoke to Mahesh for some time in hushed tones, and then walked to Suma. Suma saw them and immediately stood up, covering her head with her saree and bowing to touch their feet.

‘No need for all this drama,’ said Mahesh’s father, ‘Where is the girl’s father?’

Suma led them to her parents, ‘Baba, Ma, these are Mahesh’s parents.’

Silence.

‘You register the marriage or do whatever you want, but first register that land in your daughter’s name,’ said his father.

Suma too stunned to say anything, looked blankly at Mahesh.

‘What land?’ asked Suma’s father.

‘Mahesh told us that after he marries your daughter, she will inherit a part of her ancestral land. I want you to register it in my son’s name jointly with your daughter, or we will not take her home.’

Suma looked at Mahesh for an explanation, while he stood silently without a word.

‘Hahahahahaha…’ roared her father in laughter, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Who told you I have any land? You fool, you tricked my daughter in to marrying you just for some imagined property? Well, she has nothing.’

‘Suma, you don’t exist for us anymore. Rot in hell, for having married this cheat,’ cursed her mother, hurling expletives, and spitting in the direction of Mahesh, before all of them, walked away, leaving her alone with Mahesh and his parents.

Mahesh’s eyes had turned red with rage. ‘How dare you spit on me, you lowly woman,’ he screamed, and ran after her mother but Suma managed to stop him and pulled him back. In anger, he grabbed Suma’s hair and pushed her to the adjacent wall. ‘Didn’t you tell me you had ancestral land in the village, you bi**h?

She hit her head and crashed to the floor writhing in pain. ‘I said my relatives have a house in the village…Mahesh, I never said it belongs to me, she said amidst sobs. ‘Why are you behaving like this? Did you marry me only for this?’

‘Why else would I marry you?’ he mocked. ‘Go back to your parents, or go to hell, I don’t care, just don’t come back to me,’ he said walking away, his parents running to catch up with him.

She lay on the floor for quite some time, warm blood trickling out of her nose and head. She felt too dizzy to get up, but kept glancing at the corridor to see if either of them - her parents or Mahesh would have a change of heart and come back to take her. 

Her eyes blurred with tears as she replayed Mahesh’s voice in her head, ‘Sumi, I love you so much…’ Hadn’t he been gushing with love until a few minutes ago?

She replayed her father voice calling out to her, just like he did every time he left home, ‘Ladoba…what do you want today?’

She strained her ears aching to hear their voices so filled with love. Love for her.

No one? 

Would no one ever call her name again? 

And then she heard the clerk call, ’Token number 22…Mahesh and Suma…’

                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The face..

Sana knelt besides Tina’s head, her left hand reaching out to caress Tina’s hair. But then, she suddenly withdrew her hand and brought it to join her right palm as if in prayer. She prayed not for Tina, but for herself. Give me the strength to bid her goodbye.

She slowly lifted the sheet of white that covered Tina’s face.

The face. What was once an epitome of beauty and arrogance, now lie shriveled and shrunken. The high arched brows and the smear of kohl around those beautiful eyes, the pout on her luscious painted lips, the well powdered nose, and high cheeks bones had all merged into one.

Just as her soul would merge with her maker. Finally.

The face. It looked so calm and at peace. Those arched eyebrows no longer questioned her presence. The pouted lips no longer spewed venom. Those kohl rimmed eyes no longer dug into hers. That powdered nose that always seemed an inch too high in pride looked subdued. Finally.

The face. What a contrast they had been to her own. A birth deformity had eaten into Sana’s features. One could never tell where her eye ended and her nose began. One could never tell if she smiled or cried. It looked like her features had merged into one. She had always been an object of hushed ridicule.

 She had envied Tina from the time their differences had started making sense to her. She had spent hours cursing her maker and more hours wishing Tina would be punished. Punished for being so beautiful. Punished for not knowing her pain. Punished for being everything that she wasn’t.

The face.It had been mangled beyond recognition. Tina had driven her car into a truck. Sana’s prayers seemed to have been answered. Now, they looked like sisters. She smiled and pulled the sheet back on to Tina’s face.

Tina’s death had put them on level ground. Finally.

The sighting....

CST was still a nightmare to her. After two years of living in the city that never sleeps, Sheela had still not got adjusted to life in Mumbai. As she waited for the train to arrive, she saw a shabbily dressed woman, with unkempt hair, a smattering of ash on her forehead, with a big round coin sized vermillion in the center, and pan stained lips, loitering nearby and throwing cursory glances at her. Sheela tightened her grip on her purse reflexively. Her purse had been picked a few days back and she had learnt to be more vigilant of her surroundings ever since .She walked a few paces ahead, as if standing next to that woman was some foreboding of ill luck. Every few minutes she looked back, checking on the woman, and seeing the woman look at her, would immediately turn away, looking elsewhere. There was something sinister about the way the woman looked at her, and she hoped the train would arrive soon and she would be spared the sight of her.

She usually took a local train to her workplace in Kalyan each day, but today she had missed it. She waited to board Udayan express that plied between Mumbai and Bangalore. The train would be crowded no doubt, but she could either board a crowded train or miss going to work. The only option seemed to be the former. She let out a sigh, not that anyone could hear it anyway. It was almost 8am, the train would arrive in another 5 minutes and she could be on her way. Going to Kalyan by this train would take longer, at least an hour, compared to the faster local trains, but today she did not have an option.

Just as she was about to start to work in the morning, her son had called up. He had met with a minor accident on the way to college, near Dadar station and some lady had taken him to the hospital. He was on his way back home and he needed her to stay back and give him the keys to their home. She had been worried sick about the well being of her son, and had placed a handful of khadi-saakhar (sugar cubes) in a small cup in front of the idol of Maa Durga, praying fervently for the safety of her only child. Maa Durga had been like a safety net for her and her son, always protecting them from any troubles.

She had been contemplating taking leave, but seeing that her son was ok, except for a few bruises, had decided to get back to work. Half her batch of colleagues had been given the pink slip, as the organization was cutting down on employees, and people who were not regular had received the first strike of the axe. She could ill-afford a lay off at this time of her life.

Udayan express finally chugged into the platform, and her nightmarish experience of boarding the train began all over again. People scurried to board seats, pushing past each other, stamping on each other’s feet, smearing each other with their sweat, so graciously awarded by the climate of the place. There was a huge morning crowd between her and the train, and even moving ahead was difficult. She heard the engine whistle, signaling that it was ready for departure, and an announcement was made to that effect.

The train had slowly begun to chug off and she was very close to getting in now. She doubted her ability to board a moving train but decided to give it a shot anyway. As she struggled to get into a compartment, her feet slipped in between the platform and the steps of the bogie, and she froze with fear as she realized what a nasty fall she was about to have; going head down and probably get crushed in between the platform and the train or under its wheels. A scream escaped her lips, even as she tried to grasp anything that could break her fall. In the fraction of second that ensued in between, she felt a firm hand grip her palm and pull her up. Her heart beat furiously, as she sat on the platform watching Udayan express pass by, clutching her reeling head with one hand and the hands of her savior with another as if she was afraid to let go. She felt her body go cold and numb with fear at the thought of what a close shave she had.

She felt a reassuring hand patting her head and stroking her back lovingly, telling her it was ok and she was now safe. Slowly she stood up and gratefully looked at her savior. She saw the same pan stained lips, before her eyes moved to the ash smeared forehead and the familiar face of the woman she had been thinking of as sinister all along. Her eyes filled with tears of shame and gratitude at the same time, and she broke down sobbing uncontrollably, hugging the very woman she had been running off from.

“Today seems to be a day of accidents,” remarked the woman, once Sheela had regained her composure, “A young boy was knocked down by a car near Dadar station in the morning, I took him to the hospital. And now you. I hope there are no more mishaps today. Here eat this, you’ll feel better” she smiled, placing a handful of khadi-saakhar in Sheela’s hands before walking away, humming a tune, leaving Sheela wonderng if it was the same "Prasad" she had offered Maa Durga in the morning!