‘When did we have breakfast?’

‘Just half an hour ago Amma. You had three idlis with chutney and a small piece of bonda.’

She closed her eyes and ran her pockmarked fingers over them. A half open newspaper lay precariously placed on her lap. 

‘One day I will run away to Ayakkad,’ she announced triumphantly, proud of managing to string together a thought. 

‘What is there in Ayakkad Amma? Just last week, did we not take you to the Bhagavathy temple? We even stayed back for the main aarti. Then why this stupid talk of running away?’

‘I want to see Baby in Ayakkad. I will stay with her for a few days. Everyone knows me there, they will come rushing to the streets as soon as they see my car. Vijayam has come back, they will say joyfully.’ 

Her eyes lit up from the inside, as if seeing it play out in front of her eyes. It had been weeks since she had washed her hair, and it stood huddled in mounds of white and grey, the ends curling back upon themselves like wisps of fading smoke. She had again applied powder all over her face, which now stood out prominently, ashen and sunk in. Lalita turned her face away. She often tried to play along, as had been the doctor’s advice, but sometimes the sickening absurdity of it overwhelmed her. 

‘Ayakkad has changed Amma. It has been sixty years since you left your village. No one will recognise you. You’ll be stranded on the road alone, with no one to help you. Do you even have Baby’s address or her phone number? How will you find her?’

Baby, a distant cousin of her mother’s, had died almost twenty years ago, but Lalita chose not to divulge that piece of information. The last time she had done so, in a fit of anger, it had turned out to be an unpleasant experience. 

‘Podi… I will easily find her. Everyone knows me in Ayakkad. They’ll all come rushing out as soon as they see my car.’  

Amma got up and paced around the room, flapping her hands on the sides, a fluttering motion that reminded Lalita of stumbling penguins from BBC documentaries. Her sari, a worn out green colour with silver embroidery, clung to her shriveled body. The blouse, which had been tight-fitting some years ago, now hung loosely about the shoulders, inflating and deflating as she moved her arms about. 

‘Okay Amma. You can run away to Ayakkad and stay with Baby. Let us know when you want us to come pick you up.’ 

She nodded and, looking out the window, pulled the curtain to the side. Sunlight poured in, creating puddles of warmth on the white marble floor. 

‘Did we have breakfast today?’

                                                                       *

It started after her husband’s death. She had been totally dependent on him, right from buying groceries to managing expenses, and the sudden loss plunged her into a deep depression that they all mistook for plain grieving. The initial symptoms, though disconcerting, had been quite harmless: she refused to sleep alone at night, and would often stare at walls in a daze. She had once mumbled to one of the grandkids that people would slowly lose all respect for her, now that Thaatha is gone. It seemed strange, for a woman who had so resolutely gone through life, to entertain such notions of low self-esteem. 

Then, during one of her yearly stays at her sister’s house in Bombay, Lalita had urgently received a call. Before bedtime every night, Amma would go around the house on an inspection. She would lock the main door, shut and latch the windows, lock the cupboards and drawers, and finally hide the keys in the small pouch behind the water filter in the kitchen. Her sister had tried to reason with her, but when confronted with her stubborn logic, had decided it best to inform Lalita. Amma’s answer had been simple and clear – If given a choice, why not do it? Better safe than sorry. Indeed, she had been surprised that they hadn’t been doing it all these years. 

Four years later, the condition had only worsened, as it was wont to be. Amma now often forgot whether she had had her meals. Her fledgling brain unable to provide her relief, she would often get up at three in the night, rummage through the kitchen, and devour whatever she found in the cupboards: murukku, thattai, pakode, chocolate, chiwda… During meals, she would plead for an extra piece of appalam, or another helping of rice. Her face would scrunch up, and, almost teary eyed, she would argue that she had had only one piece while others were already on their second helping. It was endearing as well as unnerving. On the phone, her sisters were shocked to know that a person as particular as Vijayam, whose USP in the family had been her discipline and rigor, was now readily consuming cheese and garlic at odd times in the night. 

Much to everyone’s surprise, she soon forgot her husband. What had seemed most important to her throughout her life was now no longer a part of her memory. His birthday and their marriage anniversary would be treated with a clueless silence; even his photos provoked only a small nod, a minor acknowledgement that she knew who the person was. She didn’t have anything to add to reminiscing conversations, and would choose to silently arrange the crumpled folds of her sari. Suddenly she would butt in with a random comment or observation – Lalita, did you water the plants today, or Vijay did you find a suitable groom for Vasu – and there would be an awkward silence or clearing of throats. 

Her childhood memories were still intact though. Stories would burst out of her during odd moments; during a walk, a meal, and especially at night, when she stood in front of the small altar near the kitchen, hands folded and eyes closed. She would turn, eyes sparkling, and recount her exploits as a child: the chakkai – jackfruit – that she and her sisters would pluck from the huge tree in the courtyard and relish with homemade red chilli, the snakes in the well that would harmlessly slither past her during bath-time, and her abiding love for her youngest brother, who would only come to her to have oil applied on his hair (‘Krishnan looked just like kutti Krishna’). Clasping her hands together, she would tell them about her school days and how she stood first in her class in her 8th class Sanskrit exam. She had had a very close friend called Iqbal who later joined the Communist Party. 

On one of her annual visits to Guruvayur, while traipsing through narrow streets as a young girl, she had suddenly been graced by Lord Krishna himself in his divine form. He had stood there, blue-skinned and dark eyed, a mischievous smile on his face. That had been the turning point in her life, Amma would exclaim with a certain solemnity. Then, with a rueful look towards the ceiling, she would walk off to her room, latch the window shut, draw the curtain, and curl up on the bed. 

                                                                   *

Lalita waited impatiently by the door, clutching Amma’s shoes in her hand. 

‘Amma, are you coming or not? I’ve been standing here for ten minutes.’

Amma adjusted the glasses on her nose, examined her hair in the mirror, and slowly walked to the door. 

‘Did you wear the diaper?’

She had recently developed urinary incontinence. Amma nodded demurely. 

‘Good. Here, wear your shoes.’ 

‘I don’t have a pair of shoes.’

‘You don’t wear shoes to walk every day?’

‘No, I wear slippers. I don’t have my shoes here.’

‘Okay never mind, wear this one.’ 

‘Whose shoes are these?’

‘Just wear them Amma. We’re already late. I have to come back and then make dinner. Let’s go.’ 

Her gait too had changed. She now walked with her legs thrown outward, her upper body languorously moving to the sides, threatening to break away. The mind-body connection was slowly coming apart. A veritable stream of images flickered through Lalita’s mind. She remembered the myriad times she had looked up to her mother for strength and wisdom, how she had braved the many difficulties that had befallen their family. 

An involuntary shudder passed through Lalita’s spine. In such moments, she would experience a vision of life reduced to its bare minimum, fledgling and tossed about, yet imbued with a strange vitality. Her life too hadn’t been easy. She was nearing sixty and in the last ten years had undergone multiple health emergencies, including an auto-immune attack that had almost left her paralyzed for good. It had taken three years of physiotherapy for her body to attain a semblance of normalcy, though she still walked with a slight limp. During such stark reminders of suffering, Chekhov’s words from Uncle Vanya, one of her favorite texts, would invariably come back to her – ‘What can we do? We must live our lives’. 

After Amma’s diagnosis, Lalita and her brother Vinod had jointly decided that she would have to stay with either of them, and that they would have to take turns to look after her. Amma’s first trip to Hong Kong after the symptoms had set in was also her last. Her brother had complained that she wasn’t adjusting enough. She was deeply suspicious of the Filipino servants and would follow them around the house, clutching all her valuables to her chest. She would call their dog ‘patti’, the Malayalam word for dog, and the kids and his wife didn’t like that. Also, she apparently had no conception of privacy. It’s better for her if she stays in India, since she’s used to that life, he had said. Lalita had put the phone down without saying anything. 

Phone calls between the siblings, once a weekly occurrence, gradually reduced to once in a month. And yet, whenever he would call Amma, she would sit straight, clear her throat, carefully drape one end of the sari over her shoulder, and with a twinkle in her eyes, answer the call. Lalita understood and acknowledged it as a historical fact, this excessive love for the male child, and yet couldn’t help but resent Amma for it. Back when they used to live in Delhi, she would create opportunities to tell people that her son lives abroad and has more than five people working under him. Lalita and Vijay, who had cared for her all their lives, would barely find a mention in her accounts. Lalita had been Appa’s pet, as Vinod had been his mother’s. She hadn’t yet had a chance to fully grieve his death, burdened as she had been with other worries, and it often weighed on her. 

Amma’s recent favorite memory, and one that she often recounted with great flourish during family occasions, was how she used to drop Vinod to school as a child. She would walk him to the gate and watch him reluctantly go in. He would come running out moments later, tears streaming down his face, and crash into the pallu of her sari, begging Amma not to leave him alone. Vinod’s face, if he were there, would turn a deep red, embarrassed by the sudden rush of affection that he neither craved nor wanted. Lalita would then wonder why she hadn’t cried for her mother while going to school. How was it possible that Amma couldn’t or didn’t recall a single memory of hers as a child? It felt strange to be possessive of memories over which no one had any control, least of all Amma. 

Nevertheless, there were moments when she lost her cool. During a particularly grueling late-night argument, when Amma had steadfastly refused to remove the diaper she had been wearing the entire day – ‘I just wore it one hour ago, it’s not even wet’ – Lalita had flung the plastic cover at her feet and walked away. Her face livid, she had cried out, ‘It would have been better if you had died and Appa lived, at least he would have listened to us.’ 

The words, once uttered, had ricocheted around the room. Amma had quietly gone into the bathroom and removed the diaper. Lalita had spent the night languishing in bed, crying tears into her husband’s shoulder. The next morning, it had been business as usual; there was no mention of the incident, and no outward sign that the words had even registered. 

Lalita, her eyes lowered to the ground, now looked up. Amma had again drifted apart. She stood next to a huge mango tree, her arm outstretched and her hand caressing its ancient trunk. Buried in its folds were variegated layers of brown and yellow. Amma seemed visibly perturbed. She wanted to convey something, but language was refusing to settle on her tongue. A kid on a cycle zoomed past, and the handkerchief tucked into her waist meekly fluttered in the breeze. Finally, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and muttered out loud, ‘Right now, at this very moment, I am remembering my childhood’. It was a strange way of putting it, and Lalita stood there next to her, watching her mother become one with the tree. 

A dog barked somewhere and Amma opened her eyes. The spell was broken. She looked around, unsure of where she was and where to go. Lalita gently held her by the arm and guided her towards the basketball court, where a high-stakes game of cricket was in progress.  A girl hit the ball high up in the sky and Amma squealed in delight. 

‘Come, let’s finish this round. The doctor has asked you to walk for twenty minutes.’

‘Do you know the way back?’

‘Yes Amma. I do.’ 

‘Okay. Let’s go.’ 

                                                                        *

On the way back, they stopped at the first-floor landing to catch their breath. Evening had descended, masking the harsh Coimbatore sun behind wispy clouds. A cool air rushed in from the window, carrying the sweat and tiredness away from their faces. Amma clutched strands of loose hair and shoved them behind her ear. Beyond the perimeter wall, they could see a wide field with clumps of coconut trees rising up in the distance. Far away, the main road snaked away in twists and turns, disappearing behind the mountains. 

‘On the other side of the mountain is Kerala. All you have to do is drive down this road and you will reach Kerala in 2-3 hours.’ 

Amma nodded in approval and tapped Lalita’s hand lightly with her fingers. A pride of peacocks waded across the arid field, filling the space with their harking calls. Amma set about identifying its members – the father, the mother, and the little children. The sun was about to set and the sky had turned a deep orange. 

‘I am thinking of going to Ayakkad.’

‘Didn’t we go to Bhagavathi temple last week? Why do you want to go there again?’

‘When did we go?’

‘Last week. We even stayed back for the main aarti Amma.’

‘Podi. When did we go?’

‘I will show you the photos on my phone. Come…’ 

Amma remained silent, then started heaving her body up the stairs, each pull accompanied by a synchronized chant of ‘Durgaa Lakshmi Saraswati’.  

‘Is dinner ready?’

‘It’s 6:30 Amma.’

‘It’s only 6:30? I feel very hungry. Did we not have chai and biscuits today?’

‘Let’s go Amma.’ 

***