eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 64

63 STORIES be reading the paper bags without uttering a single word. Eventually, Grandpa would gulp the bitter tea without making a face. Since it was not yet time to leave for school, Parijat would tell her mother, “Maa, Grandpa is here.” nor did he take part in politics. Instead, he spent most of his time drinking. He used to ask Grandma for the money received from rents and then blow it away drinking. Even though he used to drink, he was never ill-mannered. He would drink and come back and sit with Grandma in the kitchen. “Let him be there,” her mother would Even the members of the extended family respond without any interest. sharing the same courtyard never used to know when Grandpa came into the house Parijat used to get angry with her mother or when he left. and say, “Why are you answering like that? He is your father.” Gradually as Grandma was not able to move, she could not look after the field or Mother used to mutter angrily, “If he runs manage the labourers working in the fields. to my house time and again because he She could not collect rents from the tenants wants to take his opium pills, where will I and all the houses in the town had to be get money to give him?” locked. At that point, Grandpa gave up drinking and began using opium. Grandma Parijat would get irritated with her mother died. As a result of her death, Grandpa did and say, “Talk softly. He can hear you.” not have money for opium. Mother would suddenly scream and say, “Why are you showing off? Go and fetch the five rupees coin tied to the corner of my wet saree drying on the rooftop and give it to him.” Parijat was not aware of when Grandpa had started asking for money from her mother. But whenever he came to their house, both Parijat and her mother could understand that he needed money. As soon as she saw Grandpa her mother would start getting It would soon be time for Parijat’s school. irritated. She would run to the rooftop with heavy steps. She would get the five-rupees coin In a similar way, Parijat’s son did not like tied to a corner of her mother’s wet saree many things about her; her rounded and and give it to Grandpa. Grandpa would not healthy arms, her way of giving opinions say a word. He would put the money into on everything like a wise person, her habit his pocket, sit for a while longer and then of murmuring songs to herself in the bathwould leave, putting on his slippers made room and kitchen. Parijat could not please from tyres. Parijat would feel like revolting her son by putting on an ordinary saree; she against her mother; her mother appeared could not feed on stale food; she could not so heartless. But she could do nothing. She pretend to be an innocent country woman would leave for school, resting her books from the village. Perhaps he preferred a on her chest. mother like Yasoda . Parijit’s mother used to say that Grandpa was an irresponsible man. He had done nothing in his life except maybe for being involved in the fight for freedom of the country. Grandma used to do everything right from looking after the lands and the men working there to collecting the rents from the tenants. When the country got freedom from British rule, Grandpa did not do anything; neither service nor business. Neither did he look after his lands eFiction India | June 2014 Had Grandpa been as worthless to her mother as Parijat was to her son? Part VII P ARIJAT WAS GETTING pulled without being aware—just like a dry piece of wood being washed away by the force of a wave or maybe like a flower falling off from the tree and being taken aimlessly by the wind. She was thinking about right and wrong, virtue and vice. Under what circumstances, under what pretense, and whether it was an auspicious day or a dreadful one, she could not fathom how it all happened. She was swimming further and further away from her place of origin. When she was in the middle of the river, she realized she had a family, had children, had dreams, and had happiness as well as miseries. How could she give up her world at this time? She was against her world without even realizing it. Parijat was absentminded, as if she didn’t exist in this world. When her son would come back with a bruise on his knee after falling off his bicycle, she would not say, “oh” out of pity; neither was she upset nor did she run hither thither. It was as if this accident had a place in the list of events that details the good and bad things of life. When Aravind would come back from office with a fight with his boss, she would not go to him to offer any consolation. When her daughter would fail her literature exam, Parijat would not give any long lectures on the importance of the mother tongue and the motherland. She was thinking of something and getting excited. She wet her eyes out of frustration. She had something which was her very own, very secretive which no one else could get any trace of. She felt she was getting younger. She loved watching herself in the mirror. She said, “There is no difference at all between love and spirituality. Both of these things make you disenchanted towards the world. Both these things rest on intense madness. The desire to become one is prevalent in both these things. The road leading to both these things is crooked and never straight. Both these things embody similar entities and experiences.” Aravind would laugh at her words and questioned, “Are you in love? Are you thinking about doing research on ‘love and spirituality?’ Are your limits only till love or are