Kayanasundaram looked up from his coffee. His eyes rested uneasily on the stairs opposite his armchair. He barely heard Padma’s soft moan; he had ears only for the anklets.
Firm. Rhythmical. Proud. The feet danced with quiet confidence to the music of a mridhungam. Padma looked up warily, as always wondering how something this harmonious could cast an ugly shadow over their house.
“Will this go on all day?” he asked quietly. He did not even conceal his dismay. He instead hurled it at her and she felt her heart fill with shame.
“I think so,” she replied, lowering her eyes. “There is a function tomorrow at the Sabha. Ma…”
Her husband did not wait for her to go on. He passed the steel tumbler to her in a swift motion and stood up.
“I think I will visit Ramamurthy today,” he said, looking at the old clock that hung to their right. “His son has come.”
“Oh,” Padma said, mostly for the want of a better reply. Ramamurthy’s son filled her with a fear, she did not fully understand.
“Do you want to come?” he asked, looking at her for the first time since their conversation had begun.
She opened her mouth slightly, still looking for something to say. When the doorbell rang, she thought she had been saved the trouble to hunt for an excuse. She turned to the door with a sigh of relief. Behind her, she heard her husband mumble. He meant to muffle his words, but Padma heard him clearly.
“The last thing we want today is visitors.”
Hema stood at the door, her saree as usual bunched around her waist in a careless attempt to hide her flab. The cheap dyes she used to hide her grays had turned her hair a deep shade of auburn. Against her fair skin, it looked bright and artificial. A thick set of glasses perched at the edge of her nose but behind them her light brown eyes were as bright and shrewd as a young girls’.
Padma did not recognize the other woman, who stood quietly beside Hema. For a minute she squinted at her visitor in curiosity. She was a small woman, but with a quiet twinkle in her eyes and a gay familiarity in her smile that caused Padma to blink in confusion. Did they know each other?
Hema laughed.
“Let us in first,” she said, pushing her host aside and dragging her friend in with her. Padma stepped aside in quiet resignation. This was not the first time Hema had forced herself in, and after forty years of living in the same naighbourhood, Padma had learned to accept this discourtesy.
“Do you recognize her?” Hema asked as soon as she was inside.
Padma shook her head quietly. Hema giggled like a school girl. “It is Kittu’s wife,” she said. Padma nodded as a slow smile spread across her face. She had last seen Hema’s sister-in-law more than ten years ago at the Navarathri festival. Kittu and Ratna, if she remembered her name right, had moved to Australia that year.
“You have come home at last,” Padma said, leading them into the living room. “Hema tells me all about your life. I heard of your husband’s promotion,” she paused as her guests settled down into a large sofa. She took the seat opposite them, “and your daughter is old enough to be married, isn’t she?”
Ratna’s reply was cut short by the anklets. She looked upward in surprise. Hema smiled at Padma in sympathy. Padma looked away, in shame and confusion. Just as she was fishing for something to say, she saw her husband walk in. She stood up hoping that he would divert them all. But he was taciturn and only as civil as the anklets allowed him to be.
“Padma, I’ll be back by evening,” he said turning to her. She saw he looked old and tired. She nodded quietly.
“Where is he going?” Hema asked, almost as soon as Padma closed the door after him.
“To visit Ramamurthy,” Padma said, bolting the door. The bright afternoon sun squinted through the thin crack between the old doors and danced on the floor at her feet. She stepped over it as she made way to her friends.
“We went there yesterday,” Ratna said, smiling, “You should see Pratap. He is so good looking.” She paused and exchanged looks with Hema, “His wife is very plain! Luckily their son looks more like him.”
“Did you think so?” Hema asked. “I thought he had her nose.”
“Her nose is not so bad,” Ratna replied most seriously, staring into space almost as if she could see the girl standing there. “Yes, her nose is not so bad.”
Rhythmic sound of dancing feet tore into the conversation.
“I did not know your daughter danced,” Ratna said, looking up again with a smile.
Padma saw Hema smirk quietly. Padma felt her heart fill with quiet loathing.
“My daughter dances a little,” she said softly. Hema’s eyes almost popped, but Padma sat back looking indignant. She had not really lied. Her daughter did dance a little.
“How old is she now?” Ratna asked.
“Fifteen.”
“She is young,” she said, with a smile. “But days fly by Padma. I cannot believe my daughter is twenty-two. I wish I had seen Pratap earlier. I would have made a proposal. They would have made such a good couple”
Padma got up to her feet.
“What will you have?” she asked, “Coffee or tea?”
“I’d like coffee,” Hema said, looking at her sister-in-law, who nodded almost absently. Padma went into the kitchen and quietly got the water boiling to make three cups of coffee.
Padma watched the water boil trying to ignore the mounting sense of failure that was constricting her chest. She knew she had failed whenever she heard Pratap’s name mentioned. She knew it when women talked of proposals. She saw it in her husband’s quiet consternation. But none of these would have scared her had she never seen it her son’s eyes. In his quiet way, Mahesh had let her know that she had failed him. And then there was no running from it. She knew she had failed as a mother. But what scared her most were the many faces of this failure. And Mahesh had shown her the scariest of them all.
Pic Source: Exotic India Arts
The Author There is nothing Shweta loves more than writing. A graduate from Madras Medical College, she is now a student at the Knight's Center for Science and Medical Journalism at Boston University, from where she hopes to graduate a fine science writer and a nuanced thinker. Apart from experimenting with eggs in the kitchen and paint brushes in her room, Shweta enjoys watching cricket and tennis and just about any movie. She is a voracious reader and enjoys astrophysics, anthropology, genetics, archaeology, mythology and just about anything that will kindle her imagination. Sa, for Shweta is her means of telling the men and the women in the world that there is enough space for everyone. It is also her way of letting people know that no one is more equal than another.
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