‘That’s not all of it,’ I said, angry at her oversimplification. How dare she think her grief over a heartbreak is justified and mine isn’t? Who died and made her the incharge of grief management? What does she know of the nightmares, of the cold nights, of the searing guilt, of the incapability to feel happiness? What does Brahmi know of the imaginings of alternate realities where I could have saved my best friend? What does she know of the days I stand outside Sami’s house hoping I would see his mother smile for a change? What right do I have to return to being normal when Sami’s father hasn’t gone to work in two years? What does she know of my anger towards Sami’s brother who has failed to take care of his parents even after what happened? But even as I was thinking all these things, all I could say to her was, ‘So can I buy you a milkshake?’
She nodded and smiled like the sun. I only had money for one so we shared it. By the time we got back to the school we had missed mathematics. Her being the monitor helped, and she manipulated our attendance. Back home I wasn’t sure what to feel about the experience which was a little Sami-esque but wholly enjoyable. All the time my heart thumped and throbbed with fear and whatever I felt towards Brahmi. For whom, I couldn’t help think, I was like an accessory, like a handbag, or a bracelet, there but not necessary.
I was still ruminating, reminiscing when Dada walked into my room a little while back, hiding miniature alcohol bottles in his pocket.
‘What is that?’
‘Free alcohol from the hotel minibar. That’s what it is!’ he squealed.
‘You’re not going to drink. Do you hear me, Dada?’
‘Damn. You sound just like Baba! And why are you walking away from me?’
‘Is this your secret, Dada? That you want to slowly poison yourself? Do you have any idea how many deaths are closely connected to substance abuse?’
‘God, Raghu. Stop being so dramatic.’
‘You’re not doing this to Maa–Baba,’ I snapped.
‘This is not my secret—’
Dada was interrupted by Maa’s knock on the door. Dada scrambled to his feet, hid the bottles behind the headboard of the bed and got the door.
‘Why was the door locked?’ asked Maa.
‘I was helping Raghu with his physics homework.’
‘Dada was offering me a drink, Maa. He has hid miniature alcohol bottles behind the bed,’ I said.
Dada looked at me in horror as Maa searched and fished out the bottles. She left the room, crying, to tell Baba.
‘Why the hell would you do this?’
‘Because I want you to live! Is that so hard to understand? Do you even know what it will do to Maa if something happens to you!’
Dada left fuming. He would have understood had I told him about New Crescent Public School.
P.S. The security at the school is terrible as I found out today. It’s only four storeys but it looks higher. All five roofs are easily accessible. Of course, two of them have bushes and trees in the drop area so that’s out. Another one faces a bunch of houses so that’s awkward. But there are two roof tops that are totally jump-friendly. I should some day tell Dada about my scouting.
13 March 1999
I met my least favourite person today, my Didimaa, Maa’s mother. She’s eighty-three and her brain is mush. She took to the bed two decades ago following a massive heart attack. Though she got better, she got used to people fussing over her. She now spends her days lying around on a musty sofa watching television, soiling her diapers—even though she’s fully capable of walking around—and rebuking all her five children, especially Maa. Only Mama could afford to be around her. He was the only one of Didimaa’s children who was rich enough to hire a full-time nurse and busy enough to not see her often. Didimaa might have been a good woman when she was young but twenty years is a long time to undo all the goodness. Twenty years is enough to overhaul a personality, to shed your old skin, and wear a new one.
Even my earliest memories of Didimaa’s are of an emotionally abusive woman, calling Dada and me filthy cockroaches, wishing us to be struck down by polio and smallpox.
‘You’ve come?’ Didimaa said as I entered Mama’s house. ‘Go now, go in the kitchen and eat what your Mama has earned. Go, eat it all and leave us to starve.Petniworks all day and sends her children here to eat. What does your Baba do? Oh, yes, prays all day to wash away your family’s sins. Your Maa’s a whore, ashakchunni. She goes and sleeps with her colleagues while her mother dies here. Is this why I kept her in my womb for nine months? Gave her my share of the food? I should have never let her go to college, that ungrateful petni. She will only rest when I die.’
The insults she hurled today were blunt when compared to the things I have heard from her before. Didimaa’s the reason why I know how to curse in my mother tongue and why I don’t like old people.
Her full-time nurse smiled awkwardly at me.
‘If you want to take a break, you can go. I am here,’ I said.
The nurse nodded and left us alone.
‘She steals,’ whispered Didimaa.
‘Didimaa, you have nothing left to steal. What can she possibly steal from you?’
