| Lahari Mahalanabish (Chatterji) | April 2026 | Short Story |
Soon after entering Rishi’s flat, his mother, Uma, took a quick shower to banish the grime of the long journey, then turned to her luggage, water dripping down her grey hair and dotting the dark canvas, to bring out four jars of pickle and a new shirt, wrapped in peanut brown paper to prevent any creases.
“I had missed your pickles so much,” Rishi beamed. “And this is perfect for me,” he said, holding the long-sleeved, formal shirt.
It was time for lunch. Rishi had draped the dining table with white linen, kept the rice and curries warm in medium-sized casserole pots and wrapped the crispy bombil fries in shiny aluminium foil.
“You’ve learned to cook well. The girl I’ll choose for you will have someone to share her duties with,” she said, after taking her second bite of the bombil.
Rishi cleared his throat and said, “There’s a girl in my office…” He paused, cast her a surreptitious glance, and continued, “We like each other.”
With considerable effort, Uma managed to swallow the rice that was attempting to choke her while her fingers involuntarily clawed at the tablecloth.
“You’ll like her too,” he added quickly.
She reached for the salad bowl, picked up a slice of lemon and sprinkled it on the bombil, suddenly aware of the drenched hair that clung to the back of her sari blouse, discomfiting her with its wetness.
“Aren’t you making it too sour?” he protested.
She dropped the lemon and turned to the mixed vegetables on her plate, pulping them into a squishy blend.
“I’ll ask her to meet you. You’ll see how nice she is.”
“I’m sure she is nice.” Her tone was flat. She finished her food in silence and spent a long time at the washbasin, rubbing the fragrant soap furiously against her hands.
Uma had imagined entering a spacious, well-lit room surrounded by her cohort of relatives, inspecting everything from the wall décor to the demeanour of her hosts, till she was requested, with exaggerated humility, to accept a seat. She would plop on a plush sofa, positioned right under the ceiling fan, and scrutinize the girl’s parents, who would sit at a respectable distance, hands folded, faces tensed. Then the girl, wrapped up in her finest silk saree and bejewelled like the ladies in the daily soaps, would appear with an ornate brass tray laden with brimming tea cups and an assortment of crunchy snacks in colour-coordinated bone china plates. After lowering the tray on the centre table, polished to perfection for the occasion, the prospective bride would step back and stand, her fingers intertwined, eyes downcast. Uma would flash a customary smile, point towards an empty sofa, and watch the girl walk towards it obediently and sit down, her eyes still glued to the floor tiles. Uma would take sips of the hot tea, of some special variety like Darjeeling, and munch on the lip-smacking snacks while asking her varied questions as if it were a job interview. Her relatives would interrogate the girl as well. After meeting scores of young women, she would select one for the coveted position of her son’s wife.
Now, all these exciting activities were being snatched from her. As if she had no importance.
After a brief nap in the afternoon, Uma flitted through the channels available on Rishi’s flat-screen TV, fitted to the wall beside the framed family photo, with a swelling sense of disquiet intruding into her leisure. In the evening, she made a call to her husband, who could not accompany her to Mumbai to visit their son due to some important business transactions, and then to the part-time maid to ensure she prepared his dinner on time.
The next evening, Uma wore a new yellow sari and uncapped a small bottle of oil, letting the scent of eucalyptus fill up the small bedroom. She massaged her grey hair, running her slender fingers through each strand – a hair-care routine she had been following since her tresses were jet-black. She recalled coiling her long, lustrous hair into a big, tight bun and leaping onto the nearest branch of the mango tree that overlooked a clear-watered pond where the fisherwomen cast their nets to catch shrimps and carps. She sprang from branch to branch, some wayward twigs poking at the pleated skirt that she had tucked between her legs to aid movement, the dark green canopy of leaves rustling against her shoulders, the small, unripe mangoes jiggling inside the embroidered cloth bag strapped across her chest. The greyish-blue sky peeped from the gap between the longish leaves. Greyish-blue like Farhan’s eyes.
He joined her by the pond when the sun was snared by the thorny hedges spiking the horizon, making it look like a porcupine’s back. She unfolded a chit of paper to reveal a pinch of rock salt; they sprinkled it on the fruits and bit into them, scooping the flesh off the coarse green skin.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Farhan said, licking bits of mango off his fingers.
Uma wiped her lips with the back of her hand and stared at him, her heart beating faster.
“My father has got a job at Puna. We are shifting next month.”
A sinking feeling seeped into her heart and grew more and more intense, till it seemed all happiness had vanished from her world.
“Will you call?” she asked at last.
“Of course, I will.” He dipped his fingers in the water to wash away all traces of the mango. As the last glow of the sun fell on his cheeks that were shaded dark by a thin film of beard, Uma noticed the black curls looping into little rings on his forehead and the newly sprouted chest hair peeping from his cotton shirt, the first few buttons undone to cope with the humidity. There was a two feet gap between them. She yearned to inch closer but was scared, unsure of his response.
He never called, although she kept on dreaming, her hopes refusing to die. Even though she tried her best to throttle those hopes, they always escaped through some cracks in her reasoning and glued her to an imaginary future.
“Ma, aren’t you ready? We shouldn’t delay further. There could be a queue at the Siddhivinayak Temple.” Rishi’s voice jolted Uma to the present. She hadn’t realised when he had returned from work.
“One minute,” she replied, braiding her hair hastily.
On the way back from the temple, the autorickshaw swerved into a lane thronging with well-dressed men and women; some milling around the colourfully decorated makeshift stalls, the others right in the middle of the road, dispersing only when some vehicle honked. In stalls, with strings of lights coiled around their pegs and twinkling along the edges of their canvas roofs, cashews, almonds and walnuts were spooned out of labelled sections and tipped into small glossy packets for the queued-up customers.
The colours and the bustle dizzied Uma and she grabbed the edge of her seat, as beads of sweat appeared on her forehead and her throat felt dry. She had spotted Farhan at a market like this one, ten years after their last meeting by the pond. In his arms was a baby girl, her tiny greyish-blue eyes darting at her surroundings, while his other hand clutched at a young woman’s fingers, a mere two inches gap between their bodies. Uma, who had stepped out of a popular sweet shop and was striding towards the auto-stand, rushed past him, all the glittering bulb lights of the market blinded by a huge mass of impenetrable darkness.
Despite the incurable heaviness in her heart, she had pulled herself together and appeared for an interview the next day. As she stepped out of the room where the evaluation had taken place, her eyes fell on the display between the door and the stairway to the upper floor. Sprawled on a long wooden table was a geography lesson model made from clay that was kneaded into mountains and flattened into plains, the landscape clefted by a thin strip of transparent blue paper. Course of a river. How would the course of her life change when she became a teacher? The respect and attention. The scope for communication. Money – not much, but enough.
Although she would have to wait for a week to know the decision of the selection committee, she felt light within. The interview had gone well. The wide school gates, painted the same shade of blue as the logo on the students’ white shirts, clanked as she stepped out on the smooth pavement and eyed the glass-doored shops lined up along its length. With a spring in her step, she entered a shop selling cosmetics and picked up a lipstick with a shiny grey exterior, the round mauve paper on the cap indicating the shade. As she removed the cap and rubbed it lightly against her fingertip to observe the colour, the discontentment of numerous evenings gushed into her. She was hauled back to the helplessness, the frustration culminating in her every time she had to attire herself in fine clothes and dab make-up on her face to meet prospective grooms and their parents. Dropping the lipstick in its cylindrical slot on the rack, she hurried out of the air-conditioned shop, and crossed the street, blasted by the sweltering heat and the acrid smell of adulterated fuel from errant vehicles. On the way to the bus-stop, she decided to halt at a bookstore to reward herself with a new book for giving a satisfying interview, but the illustration of an amorous couple on the cover of a paperback swept her right back into the whirling visuals at the market the evening before, crushing all traces of the high she had been experiencing while leaving the school building.
It was early evening when she reached home, without buying any books, but the desire to immerse herself in a captivating work of fiction had not deserted her altogether. So, she turned to her parents’ bookshelf. Made of teak, it concealed the better part of the wall facing the TV and comprised three racks that were reeded with books, slim and heavy, old and new, some with their spines intact, some with tears, some with decorative bookmarks. She selected a sci-fi novel, and as she pulled it out, the books in front slanted backwards to fill in the gap, and she was struck by how easily an absence could be concealed.
“Mrs. Suhani had called,” her father said, entering the room.
Uma looked up, trying to recall who Mrs. Suhani was.
“She wants to get her son married to you.”
Now, a milky-complexioned face emerged from the medley of scrutinizing faces, and Uma tried hard to recall the appearance of her son. Perhaps, it was too nondescript to remember. An alarm rang within her as there was no trace of joy or even relief in her father’s voice, although she had been made to believe that a development such as this would lift her parents to the pinnacle of happiness.
“She has only one condition,” he continued, “you must not go out to work.”
‘But -”
“I know you want to be a teacher. But consider the situation. No one else has called back, and you can’t get younger…”
The truth of her father’s words knifed through her soul. She overlooked the gap left by the sci-fi novel in the bookshelf, and instead, with trembling fingers, parted two adjacent books in the rack below to create space for it, to fit it somewhere, even if it did not belong there.
Her discontentment intensified when she got a call from the school informing her that she had been selected. Thrashed by the dilemma for days, she finally calmed herself enough to indulge in some reasoning. She had been told love could happen after marriage. She chose the chance of finding love. Even though it came at a heavy expense.
After marriage, she found that her husband cared little for love. But he cared to replicate the lives of other men he knew – earn money, marry, have children. Yet Uma found love – through Rishi – who had grown into a sensitive, kind, intelligent man, who cared for the way she felt. But now?
***
Uma was sitting near the stern, watching her co-passengers settle into their seats while Rishi stood near her, clutching his phone, his gaze focused on the people still embarking the launch. Sea-gulls swooped down, brushing past their heads, to snatch the Marie biscuits offered by a group of boisterous college students with heavy bags slung from their shoulders.
“There she is,” he said and waved his hand to catch the attention of a young woman, clad in an embroidered salwar-kurta. Noticing him, she trotted towards them, swiftly wiping the sweat off her face with a handkerchief.
“Ma, this is Sheela.”
The young woman smiled at Uma, who observed her keenly as she lowered herself into the seat next to her, her dark-brown ponytail swishing across her back, and noted that her hair was not as luscious as her own tresses were at that age. She noticed further that there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Is there a lot of work at the office?”
Sheela smiled again and spoke briefly about her work life. Rishi explained how hard she had worked the previous week to meet a challenging deadline.
At least she gets paid for it. A snide voice whispered in Uma’s head. Her gaze shifted to the white sprays thrown by the launch, which had started to move, furrowing the water into sputtering ridges, then wandered back to Sheela. Only a hint of lipstick traced the young woman’s lips, probably because she was sipping water too often from the bottle in her hessian bag.
Why would she need makeup when she has already stolen my Rishi? The snide voice rose again.
Uma asked Sheela about her parents, other family members, her childhood and her interests beyond work. The snide voice hissed more loudly, but Uma took a moment to turn away from the young woman, look into the sea and shut away the noise in her head, like the launch, advancing towards the Elephanta Caves, had shaken off the chatter of the crowds thronging the shore. She turned to her son and his girlfriend, interlocked in the exchange of loving glances, and took a deep breath. She realised she, too, had a choice. A choice that none could snatch away from her. Not even bad luck.
“I’m glad my son has found you,” she said.
A wave of relief washed across Sheela’s face, tapping out an inner beauty that glowed and flooded her with a surge of exuberance, easily submerging the paleness of her lips and the patches under her eyes.
The seagulls soared higher. Caressed by sunshine. Free. Uma felt free as well, dropping her baggage of disappointments in the sea.
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Lahari Mahalanabish (Chatterji) is the author of 2 books – a short story collection entitled Tales of the Anointed Skeletons and Love (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2022), which was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2023, and One Hundred Poems (Writers Workshop, 2007). Her work has been shortlisted/long-listed in several international competitions; appeared in 15 anthologies and several literary magazines in India and abroad. An IT graduate from Jadavpur University and software engineer by profession, she currently lives in Sydney with her family.
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Photo by Subhro Vision on Unsplash
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