Inspired by
The chair was on the verge of being shattered all completely for it was made of bamboo. My grandfather had gifted a pair of them to my mother when she was given away in marriage to my father. That was a gift from a loving father to his youngest daughter, and never a dowry for he was sensible enough to figure out the anticipations of the other side. One of the chairs had already been beaten to pieces by my father; I figured it was time for the other to meet a similar fate with the colored pieces of broken glasses on the carpet that reflected the hues of emerald green of the chair. Its tapestry was nearly torn apart by the sharp edges that shone bright as the light of the only lamp in the room fell on them, and it inevitably needed to be darned, so as I could tell. The shards of glass reflected the pink, red, and green of the room. It was ironic how they composed a kind of confetti for me laced with sorrow, evincing the resentment that the house encompassed then. It was nothing new, merely a reiteration of what had grasped a higher slope on the line of all the same catastrophe that I was no longer a stranger to. Beside the red flower vase, tall stood my twin brother, watching all of what I was a witness to as well. Honestly speaking, I could tell from even that ten feet long distance that he was giving the scene all he could too because, somewhere inside, he was jaded just like me, Or I was possibly wrong. Fatigue had still not got him, at least not yet. But he was falling on the same line as mine, that I could tell for sure.
“Look at her, look at your mother. Look a little closer!”, spoke my father as he beckoned me and my brother altogether.
“And do you think you are the one all chaste while you strive in every way to humiliate me in front of my kids?”, my mother rebuked him.
Striding with a dangerously swift pace, he reached for my arms. Pulling me into the centre of the room, he shouted close to my ears, “Haven’t you always been such an acolyte to your mother? HAVEN’T YOU? That woman stands right there…That whore!...”
“Don’t you dare talk like that to my daughter!”, my mother screamed out loud, pulling me out of his grasp. She continued saying, “Keep your mouth shut! They are too little. You can defame me as and when you wish to, but don’t inflict them with this invective of yours”.
“I see. You’re scared of the truth being spilled out now, aren’t you? Tell me. Admit it for I know it all too well”, father enquired, his palms gradually closing into a fist.
I looked at my brother, anticipating that he would shove father if he was to get any closer to mother. He kept staring at them. His eyes seemed to tell me the truth that it was too far gone for both of us to keep calm. He saw the fist too. He darted towards me, and pulling me away from mother, took me to the room that juxtaposed the room. That was unfortunately the farthest we could go before we heard our mother cry. It wasn’t unfortunate because we had stormed into the last room, but because we couldn’t move any further. Again, we had frozen, and had become very still. The dearth of love had rendered us both bereft of motion. The perilous part of it was only that the attack had been from the inside.
An hour later
“Watch out Ivy. You’ll hurt yourself. Don’t come to this room until I have picked up the glass pieces. Tell your brother that too. Where’s Arnold by the way?” blurted Samy who’d been living with us since more than a decade.
“Ah! He is asleep in the other room. Where is mother?” I asked.
“She is in the kitchen.”, Samy replied, engrossed in her task right away.
“Where is father?” I enquired, cautious enough to keep my voice low.
“He has gone out. It’s really better if he stays out for a while.” Samy responded as she took back her broom.
Making my way through the porch, I entered the kitchen from the other door that abutted the main door of the pantry. Mother sat on the first chair out of the two on the left edge of the dining table that again, grandpa had gifted her on her marriage; all pale and red, with eyes too frazzled and tears unshed, her sorrow enveloped her, her visage said it all.
“Mother”, I called out, almost in a whisper.
It was incredible that she had still heard me. Taking a jiffy to heed to me, and blinking the next tear out of her eyes, she moved her head slightly towards the left to see me standing.
“Come here honey”, she said in between her sobs that were gradually beginning to retreat. Three feet and I was in front of her. Sitting on the chair, her head seemed too distant from my face.
“Here, sit down. Come on, get up sweetie”, she said as she pushed the cat out of a chair adjacent to her for me without moving out of her seat.
No sooner had I got up that she held my hand and spoke, this time barely making it in between her sobs for they were receding then, all to assail her again.
“Honey… I’m sorry… I…I am really sorry…”, she murmured.
The aura of pain had engulfed us all and it was all too much.
Ananya Dutta
Bharati College
University Of Delhi
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