Kaalbaisakhi
The pale green walls of peeling paint enclosed the “Women’s Gym” . On top of Shamala’s bungalow; the gym had two rooms, one with a gleaming set of weights and contraptions and the other empty but for yoga mattresses pilled on top of one another in the corner.
Shamala sat on that pile, gazing out of the window staring at jumble of wires on the electric pole cast in the foreground by an opaque turquoise of the cloudless sky. A ceiling fan beat the air incessantly. Time was still but for the movement of the window grill’s shadow on Shamala.
“Shamala. I am done. Where shall I set the tea?”
“Just make one for yourself.”
Kamini stared at Shamala who did not break her gaze from the window. She turned and left to make one cup of tea.
Ranu sat inside the swaying subway car. The car was mostly empty. She sat opposite a black man. Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. He smelled exotic. The man had stretched his strong sinewy legs out in-front of him. He started into his iPad, propped upon his muscular abdomen. The thin neon pink wire of his ear phones entwined and fell across his chest, and rose touching his neck and then into his ears. She could see a regular array of small beads of sweat form upon his brow and his neck. The beads grew and coalesced and a drop of sweat fell on to his shirt.
He suddenly turned his eyes to meet hers. She darted at his gaze and stared at the floor; her face burning in embarrassment. Gathering courage she looked back up. He was staring at her and their eyes met. Both sat unblinking, in silence. He smiled. He had such a beautiful smile, she thought.
The subway screeched, and stopped. She had to get down. She got up and walked towards the door. His face fell. As she stepped out she turned and gave him a smile and a wave as the speeding train took him away.
Kamini had just finished her tea by the sun which fell into the kitchen. She sat wondering why Shamala had not had tea. She rubbed her aching knees and called out after the scurrying yellow cat as it disappeared into the backyard through the kitchen. Her saree reflected a warm red into the shadows in the room.
It was a warm late summer afternoon. The sky was clear and empty. The old neighborhood was still and silent. There was no chattering of televisions, no squeaking cycles. She could if she tried hard, hear humming fans. The monsoon will soon arrive, she thought. It did not rain this summer. It did not rain last summer or the summer before that.
She had once many many years ago, in a life far away, seen the wind caught in the trees as she lay on the tilled soil of her father’s farm and got drenched by the approaching wall of rain. It was a fading memory now. She had forgotten the small rock which jutted into her back, she forgotten that she was angry. It was the first time she saw ice. The rain was accompanied by hailstones the size of her small fist. She starkly remembered the cold pain in her head as she bit into the ice. The summer storm was a time to be young again; be childish like the wind and the rain, and to play havoc.
She put out the cat’s saucer of milk, and kept some left over fish from lunch in its bowl. She was calling the cat when the doorbell rang. She hurried to the door. She was half expecting some truant kid playing a trick to pass a dreary afternoon. She first peered through a side window, to see who it was and whether someone was there.
It was a girl she had never seen before. She was wearing a pair of torn loose jeans and a rather oversized shirt. She wore her curly black hair short. Kamini might have thought she was beautiful had she not been worried about those torn jeans. She did not like them.
“What is it?”, she shouted as she opened the door.
“Gym”, said the girl. Kamini gave the girl and up-down once again and decided she was trust-able enough. She crossed the yard and opened the gate.
This was one station away from home, but Runa had to pick up her blouse for the saree she was to wear at her college. She hated the saree. It was soft and fluid. She was square and straight lines.
“Bhaiyaji, is the blouse ready?”, she said handing the guy at the counter a receipt.
“One minute, madam.” and the guy disappeared behind troves of fabric.
Many heavy sarees were displayed prominently. The ground was littered with cloth shreds with woven gold. It would make a huge gaudy cloth doll if you collected all that cloth. She rested her elbows on the counter as she turned to face the street. She started reading the bills pasted on the wall jutting out of the tailor’s shop. Three different woman were offering tuition in math, biology and English at ‘reasonable rates’. A job center was guaranteeing ten thousands rupees per month. And someone had opened a gym only for women.
“Madam.”
She turned and picked up the blouse and stuffed it into her backpack. She thanked the tailor paid her dues and turned to gaze at the advertisement.
“Is this place on this lane?”, she pointed at the pasted gym leaflet.
“Six or seven houses down. They have board up there.”
She smiled and then walked down the lane. She need to go to a gym. She found the house. It was detached from the others and stood squarely in it’s own fenced yard. The yard was paved with rough kadapa slates. The structure itself was old. The porch had wooden beams, and a swing large enough to be a couch. The second story somehow stood unnaturally on top of the first. She pressed the doorbell beside the gate. A wrinkled old graying woman in a soft maroon saree opened the door of the bungalow and without approaching the fence asked, “What is it?”
“Gym”
The old woman hobbled across the gray stones and opened the gate and let Runa in.
“Shamala, a girl has come to inquire about the gym.”
Shamala, turned from the window to face Kamini. She got up hurriedly and walked out into the first room where Runa was waiting.
“Hello, I am Mrs. Sen.”
Runa stood transfixed as she gazed upon Shamala. Runa was around four fingers shorter than her. She was wearing a cotton saree, it glowed softly as it caught the sun from the open window. Her long black hair fell down to the small of her back and it swayed with each step. She seemed disheveled as if woken from a deep, deep sleep. Her face though, was bright and her eyes were staring right back into her own.
“Hello, I am Runa.”
Shamala stared at the girl in-front of her, in her torn jeans. She was lost in the dark tresses of her hair. She forgot her empty home as she noticed each contour of her face, her thick eyelashes and her hazel eyes staring right back into her own.
Runa was lost in the darkness. The darkness became a breeze, the breeze became strands. She was in hair. The hair was soft and it flowed all around her, like the primordial darkness onto which the Lord looked and said let there be light. The hair was like waves upon a lake, waves upon, waves upon waves till it filled everything. She felt herself slither through the hair. A lovely thing she felt, each strand of silk brush against her delicate neck. The hair smelled of jasmine. The hair played with her. The hair then moved swiftly, like a gust of wind, and left her alone. She woke up in her bed.
It was a humid still moonless night and Runa could not sleep. She threw off her bed the sheet covering her. The ticking of the clock rung louder and louder; they were drums heard over the orchestra. She started blinking to the seconds. She ran her fingers through her hair, they were moist. She was sweating. She was tired. She lay awake and distraught when her mother came to wake her up.
“Wake up. You have to go workout.”
“No, I don’t want to go in the morning.”
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“Then why did you ask me to wake up? Is this like the violin? I don’t think you’ll stick to it. You have these phases…”
“It is not like the violin. I will go. While coming back from college.”
“We’ll see about that. Wake up now, the breakfast will go cold.”
That night Shamala sat at the large and ancient mahagony table alone. Kamini had set up the food and had gone to sleep. Shamala took a bowl of rice and ate it with a fish curry. The fish curry was warm and sour and had the yellow zing of mustard. The fish was bony and required efforts to be eaten. But she set about separating the flesh from the bones. She finished her meal and made herself a paan.
She walked over to the old record player and sat down on the floor beside it. She pulled out a drawer and started sifting through the dust covered records. She found what she was looking for, “Rupert Holmes — Partners in Crime”. The record was quite old, and she took it out of it’s cover delicately and placed it on the turntable. The needle then scratched the surface of the record, and she heard the drum beat and the Pina Colada song started. She fell asleep on the couch.
Runa was in the subway. She was shaking and had to hold her seat to stop. She had left her college mid day, that was unusual. She couldn’t wait to go to the gym. But she couldn’t understand why that overpowered her. She was scared. She was anxious. What would Shamala think of her? Would she let her use the gym? She was cold as she perspired.
The train stopped. She got up and paused at the gate. She could go home and tell her mother that she was not feeling well. The gate gave a lurch and began to close, she jumped on to the platform. And turned to see as the train picked up speed and left.
She stood there waiting, her hair rustled by the wind in the wake of the train. She took a deep breath. There is no harm, she thought but like the burbling wave upon a sandy beach, she felt a fear rise upon her legs. They felt numb, and that feeling rose till it reached her neck. She felt as though the ground under her disappear, like the sand with a wave, and she collapsed on to her knees. She exhaled, got up and walked out of the station. She stopped once by the store and bought a deodarnt.
“Runa, the trainer only comes in the morning and the evening.”
“Well I thought I might just jog the treadmill for a while.”
“Have you used it before?”
“No.”
Shamala then walked towards the treadmill. “This is the speed setting”, she said, “This one is for elevation . Start slow…”
She saw as Runa got on to the treadmill and started jogging at a frenetic pace.
“Slow down.”
She held Runa’s back, and she stopped moving for a moment and almost flew of the treadmill. Shamala decreased the speed to brisk walk. Took Runa’s hands and placed them on the handles.
“Thanks.”
Shamala laughed, “My pleasure.” She stood there watching Runa walk. “I guess I will also join you.”
Shamala got on the other treadmill and started walking. They both walked and then jogged in silence. They both found themselves staring at the other. Their gaze like little fish in water rapidly darted from staring straight ahead to staring at the other. The most agile fish is caught given enough time, and Runa found Shamala staring at her.
She did not know what to do. Try as she might she could not avert her gaze. She stared on and missed a step and fell off the treadmill.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, this was my first time.”
Shamala gave her a hand, and helped her on her feet. The two stood facing each other. Shamala holding Runa’s hand. Runa smiled. A questioning smile. And Shamala returned it. They both stood there. There are strong forces in nature, there are winds which uproot and fling trees, waters rising and swallowing towns and falling mountains burying them but there was no force though, none strong enough to stop and pull them apart as their lips met.
Kamini was searching for the cat. She had a saucer with fish bits, and was surprised the cat was not already at her feet. As she stepped into the backyard, she noticed the air was different. It was thick with tension and alive with power. She placed the saucer on the ground and walked up to top of the house. She saw no one in the gym, and went to the window facing north. She sat on the pilled yoga mattresses. She considered for the smallest possible moment a thought can register, where Shamala was.
She peered out of the window. A great blue bank of clouds was approaching from the north-west direction. The clouds were dissolving into grey hair. It was heralded by a boisterous wind which tossed the leaves upon their stalks. She saw the tall row of silver eucalyptus trees bend and wave in sequence as each tree in its turn was caught by the incoming wind. The sky was changing color. And the light falling upon the white neighboring bungalows was tinged with brown. The cloud bank was rapidly approaching and the city was being hid under it.
The wind howled. It was no longer just air, it was a living entity, enthused with youthful madness. It was a child, which knew not its strength. Kamini watched as a strong gust of wind threatened to blow the tiles from the roof. She saw with increasing glee how far the eucalyptus trees bent. It first started as a single loud bang upon the roof. Then there were two in quick succession. Then silence, when Kamini wondered what was happening. And then it began, a barrage of hailstones. Kamini was a child again. The deafening sound of rocks of ice falling upon the tiled roof was the sound she hadn’t heard for many a year.
She sat and watched it hail from the window. Then she went back down to the back yard and ate a hail stone which had fallen on the ground. A ring of pain flowed across her head. She perhaps shouldn’t have, she was quite old after all. But that was the point. She sat on the kitchen floor gazing into the backyard. It was now raining. She could not see the house behind theirs. All colors had bled into blues.
The kitchen was dark and the only light was the one coming through the door, filtered by the rain. Small droplets of water where floating through the air and settling on to Kamini’s dark saree. They stayed on the fabric for an ephemeral moment, then disappeared into stains, wetting the threads of that old fabric. Kamini hopped the cat was dry and safe.
Everyone’s storm is different. The earth had longed for the rain. She was dry, and the only thing that could wet her was approaching on the northwest winds. Needs are more important than desire, but lust heeds not rationality or morality. It is a primal force. It was that force with which the sunned earth, in the summer heat had called out to the rain.
Runa woke up in a strange room after a dreamless sleep. It was dark and she knew not the time or the nature of the reality around her. All she was aware of was the smell of jasmine. Was this again a dream, she thought as a cold shiver ran through her spine. She turned in her bed and propped herself on her elbows.
“You woke up?”
Runa stared perplexed for a moment, but then she smiled. Her happiness radiated though the darkness and warmed Shamala.
“It is seven. The storm took out the power.”
Runa got out of bed, and walked towards Shamala and held her hands. The two women smiled. Shamla led her out into the balcony of her bedroom. The floor was wet and cold and they stood there bare foot. There was faint light from the generator driven households and the occasional passing car. It illuminated the street barely and cast the houses, and her balcony in deep shadows. They stood there in-front of everyone but hidden still. The storm had been rough. They noticed a fallen tree. The street were still filled with water. They could see a woman cook by candle light in the apartment complex opposite the house. Shamala placed a hand across Runa’s bare waist.
“That was quite a storm.”
