Homecoming

Three months after burying her only child, Safiya was back to work at her little grocery shop in Pasri. During those three months, all sorts of relatives had visited and stayed, offering their sympathies to her. Some had insisted that she accompany them to their places and stay there until… until what? There was to be no healing this time, no gradual ‘things will get better’. The damage was permanent.

Growing up as the poor relation to relatively well off relatives, she had a first hand experience of inferiority complex and the skepticism it infuses in those who have been through it most of their lives. Then, she couldn’t carry on with her studies because her father (at the instigation of his sister, everyone claimed. But she knew that this was an excuse planted by her parents) married her off when she was still a student of 12th standard. This hullabaloo, and a pregnancy resulted in her failing the 12th boards. She tried again next year, but by then she was the mother of a noisy and demanding baby with a whole household to run, and that was the end of it. She hadn’t even bothered to check her results in a copy of Daily Excelsior her husband had bought that day. And after a month, he died in an accident. “Oh well”, she thought, “now it’s just me and my Saloni.”

Young as she was, and not quite ugly, many-a-divorcees and widower turned suitor, which in a Kashmiri society like that of Bhadarwah means to send marriage proposals. But Safiya refused. All her life, she had been denied the chance to follow her will. This was her revenge.

But some people are born with a crooked life-line.

Her brother-in-law, who owned a TATA Sumo, supported her all this while, albeit not quite happily. Most of the marriage proposals used to come through his route. And after two years of tolerating this financial nuisance, his wife was strongly feeling that something needed to be done. So when they saw Safiya talking to the next door neighbour, a college going lad, Safiya’s old classmate, they saw through the facade straight at the unchaste motives, and, out of duty and utter shame, shared their concerns with everyone they had a conversation with. And because of the same question of honour, were obliged to talk to Safiya about this. And because of the same question of honour, Safiya rented a bedroom-cum-kitchen and a bathroom, and with some money she borrowed (she preferred this word to took) some from her mother, started a shop in Pasri.

Whenever she envisioned Saloni as an adult, as all parents envision their children, there were no hopes or dreams of financial successes that she attached with her. All she wanted was for her daughter to come to her, and thank her with the utmost respect and gratitude imaginable. And as Saloni was the only person she felt she had a duty towards, she turned all her feelings towards her.

It was in these circumstances that Saloni grew up. Her mother liked to keep her close, all the time. Saloni liked that too, couldn’t like anything else, because she had been rendered incapable of that. Her mother had never let her have an independent peek at the outside world. All the light that entered her mind, came through the filter called Ammi. Her mother and her love-fetters were all she had ever known, and like a joey, she did not want to leave her pouch. Until menarche.

Afterwards, as her own personality became strong enough to start expressing itself, her whole existence, first, wanted space, then yearned for it, then yearned for freedom. This process continued for four years, until she was fourteen.

Then, for the last two years of her life, Saloni resisted her ‘control freak’ mother’s control. Teenager chutzpah- very common. But she never defied her. Respect for parents- very rare. Saloni had certain lines drawn in her mind, and she never crossed them. But the heart, notoriously, always shows its middle finger to the mind.

Haris- that was his name. A lean structure, not too tall, brownish complexion, and oily, slicked down hair. But the thing about him was that he didn’t look at her as if she was property. He looked at her like… well, never mind. She didn’t care what way he looked at her, as long as it was not like property. His quietist, lower-middle class demeanour was utterly reminiscent to her of her own insecurities. Saloni had known little else than her mother and her cock-sureness in whatever she did. Their relation started within the month.

Haris smoked, and at Safiya’s shop. Saloni thought this was a good opportunity to be near him. She tried and succeeded in perceiving his smoking as a sign of his being “man” enough to clean his own crap.

Safiya was pleasantly surprised when she saw her daughter spending time with her at the shop. Her visits to the shop had gone down to zero in the last three or four years. But here she was now, big as life, sitting with her and even helping her a little in doing the math. This went on for a fortnight.

One day, then, Safiya had a strangest thought- her daughter was sixteen, and sixteen or so were the boys who smoked in her shop.

“So what?” she thought.

She cast aside the thought, but it kept coming back to her again and again, until one day she decided to test this unpleasant… catastrophic theory. She had noticed that one fellow spent a lot of time in the shop, and even came twice or thrice a day. She mentioned this to Saloni, saw the colour rising in her cheeks, and knew instantly. She asked her to go home at once, closed the shutter of her shop, and slapped her daughter numerous times once home, grabbed her braid and yanked it backwards, and slapped her some more, so hard that she was panting and her hand hurt by the time she had stopped.

The next morning, she went to wake her daughter and couldn’t. The sheets were wet and red, and the kitchen knife was lying by the bedpost.

It had been three months since then, the police had closed the case as one of suicide, the number of visiting sympathisers and mourners had subsided considerably, and Safiya could not sleep at night. If she could see her daughter again, she would first hug her so tightly and so long her arms would give up, and cry so hard that nothing but her daughter’s crying could console her. And then she would beat her again, ironical as it was..

Her first customer that day was a boy who used to be a regular customer. Not Haris, but one of his types. This made her wonder, for the first time, she was shocked to notice, if he had attended her daughter’s funeral. Probably not. He was clever.

A week after getting back to business, Haris came to the shop, with two other boys. His eyes never met hers, but the tension in the room was thick as smoke. He pretended not to care, to not remember anything, as if her daughter had never existed. As if Saloni was only hers to remember. Only hers. The idea sounded good.

Eventually, and contrary to all possibilities and expectations, Safiya started mingling with Haris. At that point of consciousness that lies somewhere between semi-conscious and unconscious, she was being drawn towards the boy. His flat cheekbones, long hair that fell into his eyes, that smile of his- it was… not bad. As they opened up with each other, he seemed to become much more confident and charming in her presence. His lower-middle class clothes seemed to be an intentional choice, as if he was trying to create some 'shabby-cool' fashion statement. With each passing day, she connected more and more with his confident manner, because that reminded her of how certain and free of any doubt she had once been, during the zenith of her life. When she left her brother-in-law’s house, that is.

When handing him the cigarette or taking money from him, she tried to touch his hand. Normal skin, but it felt so good against hers. They often smiled at each other, and talked a little longer and a little more intimately than regular shopkeepers and their customers do. Safiya even found herself blushing at Haris’s thought. Her pretence of love was ripe finally, just like her daughter’s had been when she had beaten her. Safiya had followed her daughter this far. It was time for the final step.

Safiya was dying to be held and set free.