Translated from the Hindi by Vasudha Sharma
It’s about to clock one-thirty. One-thirty in the day. The sun is right above the head. The heat has turned the road naked. There is not a tree in sight to give mere cover of a sheer cloth.
Dinesh is aimlessly standing on the roadside clutching the handlebars of his motorcycle. A furnace smoldering under his helmet. He takes it off and places it on the seat. Now the sky is showering whips on his bare head. Sweat streams down his head, forehead, and face, depositing under his shirt’s collar; his damp shirt sticking to his back. Hands and feet feel sticky. The stingy glare of the sun creates red-orange circles in front of his helpless eyes.
Anyone would reminisce about home in such a situation. A man builds a house to shelter himself from heat and rain—four walls and a roof.
His house is right ahead. Across the street. He’ll have to drag his motorcycle a few steps. Once he crosses the courtyard and climbs some stairs, he’ll only be left to open the door. He will be inside the house. Altogether, it won’t even take two minutes.
He looks at his wristwatch once again. Yes, one-thirty it is. This is the right time. Shalini must be eating lunch, and if he delays any more, she’ll fall asleep in her room. She’ll certainly answer the door if the bell rings but it gets difficult then for Dinesh to bear her face.
She’ll come, step by step; he’ll recognize her by the sound of her footsteps—her gait remains the same—she’ll come, she’ll pull down the door latch and return to her room. Eventually, Dinesh will have to thrust open the door. Stepping inside, he’ll catch a glimpse of her back, not her face, and thud!, her room’s door will slam shut. He’ll be left behind, in the room outside which they use as a living and dining room. Food will be neatly served on the table corner.
One thali, neither too big, nor small. Two bowls and a spoon placed in it, a glass kept nearby, and two vegetable dishes served in pots, two big serving spoons, four chappatis covered in a cloth, placed in a tray. Dinesh may easefully wash his hands and face, a fresh towel hung at the washbasin behind, take a bottle of cold water and curd from the fridge, and eat. He may even reheat the food in the kitchen if he wishes. Matchsticks and a freshly cleaned kadhai would be near the gas stove. There is no scope for grievance.
He can rest in his room after eating lunch. Fennel-cardamom is kept in a small casket on the table near the bed. He may eat and sleep. Or not sleep if he doesn’t wish to.
There isn’t any sort of pressure on him. Shalini wakes up at five and puts a cup of chai on the table. She often takes her chalice of chai to the window and looks outside while sipping. Dinesh knows that if he takes his cup to the window Shalini will move to the living room and sit with a magazine.
How wearisome it is to pass time in one’s own house. He begins planning his escape at four o’clock, but to leave before five he’ll have to call out to Shalini to shut the door. No matter how long he waits, she’ll come to bolt the door only when he would have left, not earlier. Just like that…turning side to side it may strike five…
It has struck one-thirty. He should reach home now. He knows well that Shalini is habitual of taking a nap after cooking lunch in the afternoon. Slight disruption in her sleep causes her headache which sometimes lasts three days. He doesn’t want to cause her a headache by arriving late.
He might find Shalini on the dining table if he reaches home right now. He won’t have to ring the bell then. The door is right in front of the dining table and she doesn’t bolt it while eating, simply hauls it. One can enter (inside) with a push. Shalini would be sitting ahead. Dinesh’s food will be arranged on the table. The same—one thali, one glass, one spoon, pots of vegetables, chappatis covered under the cloth…cold obligation served politely.
Shalini doesn’t raise her head or look at Dinesh as he enters. She quietly eats her food. How does she recognize the one entering is none other than Dinesh? He opens the door in a new way every day. Perhaps she shockingly lifts her head and with a heartful gaze gets compelled to look at him, and then…can it not happen that looking at him like this after years, she begins to recognize him in a new way?
“Shalini,” he wishes to say, “Shalini I’ve retired. I do not have any work to do now. Do you remember, you would say that I don’t have the time to listen or speak whatsoever? I would return home from the office with files in my arms. I was always drowning in work. Now I have plenty of leisure time. We can talk for hours. It’s out of habit that I get out of the house in the morning. I won’t go if you say.” He wishes to speak a lot more and waits for the right moment.
He sits in front of Shalini after washing his hands and face. He peeks at her while serving himself food…hoping that she lifts her face so he can say his heart out, but she keeps her eyes fixed on the plate. She clears her utensils and leaves as soon as she finishes her meal. Neither ever a utensil is left behind, nor does she ever look to see if Dinesh has eaten or is still eating, if he has risen from his place at the table or is still seated. With Dinesh present, Shalini’s face doesn’t remain a face but becomes a flat back. It’s a courageous task to converse with a person with their back to us. Dinesh doesn’t have as much [courage].
Yet, one day he cried out while eating, “Shalini!”
Shalini’s body showed no movement. Her fingers breaking a mouthful didn’t even tremble with surprise.
“Shalini!” he called out in a louder voice.
Shalini kept eating food.
“I have to say something to you,” he leaped over a cliff with much courage.
Shalini neither lifted her face, nor her hand stopped.
Dinesh tried to hear her silence. Perhaps she has heard him and is speaking without uttering, “Yes, say, I’m listening.” But no, there were no words in that silence, it was completely lifeless.
“Why don’t you say anything?” he finally shouted.
“You have to speak, not I,” said Shalini faintly, and then silence spread about. Words rose like dust and fell asleep in the surrounding silence without picking a wave. Shalini’s face was sentimental like before, her eyes bowed with her head. Her tight lips had opened for such little time that Dinesh was left thinking whether she had really said something or was it merely his hallucination. Dinesh had lost his courage. There were many more trenches ahead and barely any support from the other side for him to prance. Else, he had a lot to say.
‘Shalini,’ he wanted to ask, ‘twenty years ago you had so much to say, what happened to it? Where did all those words disappear? How did your soul get satisfied without saying anything? I was so busy then. You would ask me, you don’t have an hour’s time to sit and talk, to which I used to say, those who have no work have the leisure to talk. If you run the house with utter discipline then you won’t have the time to chatter either…why don’t you understand, Shalini, I did not have time then. Now I do. Circumstances change. We have to change with the circumstances as well. Look, we are the only two creatures in the house. Our only son has gone and settled in America. No chance he’ll come back. Now all we have to say, we have to say to one another. How will we live life by remaining silent?’
Should I try to express my point once again, he had thought. He thinks so every day. Daily he tells himself that once the silence breaks, everything will be alright. They are getting used to talking to each other. That’s it. There’s no other issue. But…Shalini…
When he returned home yesterday afternoon, he could hear a sound of laughter from inside the house, even from the door. He stuttered. Did he end up standing in front of someone else’s house? He reread his name-plate over the door many times. It’s surely his house. Who’s inside, then? Laughter is bursting from the throats of not one but two women. One is that of Shalini, but the other? Whoever the other woman is, Shalini is definitely one of them. With much impatience, he pushed open the door and landed inside. Mangla, Shalini’s younger sister, was sitting on the sofa with Shalini beside her. Both of them were chuckling. Before the silence after laughter’s cessation could knock his ears, Dinesh spoke up, “How’s everything going on? How is Suresh doing? And kids? How many more years until Madhavi becomes a doctor? And did you get to watch any new film?”
He asked questions upon questions. Mangla would answer in between. Shalini sat around quietly for a while, then suddenly got up. Mangla saw her, hesitated for a moment, then stood up as well.
“Oh, where are you going?” Dinesh said, “Sit-sit, leave after eating lunch. It’s surely ready.”
“Jiji, I have already eaten food,” Mangla replied shyly.
Already eaten! Oh…!
“That’s good, that’s good!” He said, “Even I returned quite late, but come, sit with me at the dining table. Have some tea or coffee. What will you have?”
“Oh no, we have had coffee…”
“Come Mangla, let’s go in that room,” Shalini said and walked towards her sleeping room. Mangla marched behind her.
Dinesh was left behind, in the comfortable and furnished parlor, where his food was neatly laid on the table–balanced, nutritious and delicious.
He felt like banging the vegetable pots on the wall, spilling the dal on the carpet, and announcing that there’s a hair in the vegetable. A pebble in the dal! The illusion of Shalini's smooth, well-organized, plain household must be broken. Hearing the clamor, she’ll run out of her room and then, he will spring in front of her and seize her shoulders (he has far more physical strength than her) and then he will keep shaking her body until she screams.
‘Speak,’ he’ll say. ‘Say something! I will kill you if you stay quiet!’ She’ll surely speak then.
He picked both the vegetable pots in his two hands and…kept it back on the table. He had never committed any bestiality in his life. He couldn’t do it now either. He just left the served food to dry and went out of the house.
Wiping off the sweat from his forehead with his shirt’s sleeve, he was thinking what would happen if he had done something of this sort yesterday? Will Shalini…? Would he have handled the indifference in her eyes? Wouldn’t it have stuck like mucus over his entire being?
One day, he sprang up from eating and shouted (to gather her attention), “There’s a pebble in the dal.” Shalini quietly stood up, picked the pot of dal and the bowl of served dal from his plate, and dumped it in the dustbin. “Why did you throw it away? It could have been eaten,” he helplessly spoke up. Shalini hadn’t replied but by the looks of her, it was obvious that there could be no possibility of a pebble being found in the dal. She hadn’t said anything, only looked his way once, but that look was enough to make a man lose his senses.
Till when should I keep standing here in this scorching heat? He wiped off his sweat with his sleeve again and looked towards his house with immense hope. He hasn't returned home since yesterday afternoon. He spent half his night in the club and the other half sitting in the park. This time when he looked, he felt that the curtain of the window of his house was moving. The curtain belt was half drawn.
A hand is still clutched over the handle. Shalini is standing behind the curtain. She is looking out the window. Of course. What if he enters the house tiptoed and grabs her shoulders from behind? Force her close to himself? Talk with her back itself? Yes, maybe that’s what he has been doing wrong. He had been trying to convey his thoughts by looking into her eyes. He had been looking for belongingness in them but instead found indifference, hurting him to turn mute. Today, he’ll first speak his mind and then turn her face towards him. Maybe after hearing him, she might…his heart beat with suppressed excitement and he promptly started dragging his motorcycle forward.
After finishing her lunch, Shalini came by the window. The curtain has slid to one side. She could go sleep in her room once she had drawn the curtain over the window and latched the door. She could no longer see outside. Uff, how sunny it is! How long has it been since she stepped outside in the sun. The need just never occurred. If someone had to ask her what heat means, she would answer—headache! Who knows how people roam around aimlessly in such heat.
Now, right in front of her house, a man is standing with his motorcycle in hand, remediless, under the blazing sun. His motorcycle might have broken down. Poor guy! He’ll get dizzy and fall if he stands in the sun like this for too long. Looks like he’s sweating a lot. He doesn’t have the patience to take out his handkerchief from his pocket. He keeps on wiping his forehead sweat with his sleeve.
But what good will happen standing here like this? He will have to drag his motorcycle. Then he should go, the garage isn’t very close but it’s not very far either. There is every possibility of getting a heat stroke if you stand under such sunlight. I once saw a laborer get dizzy and fall under such heat when I was studying in college. How he squirmed after falling and within five minutes, he was no more. Later people remarked that he could have survived had he got water on time. No one could understand what was happening then. There is no water anywhere near here either. Who knows, he might not be able to move his motorcycle forward because of thirst. If not, she could take a glass of water and give it to him. What’s the harm? She opened the fridge, took out a bottle of cold water and filled the glass. She returned to the window and glanced out again. That man was still standing there the same way. He’s constantly staring in her house’s direction. Why? Is he someone known? Who is he? Who could he be?
She saw the man slowly moving forward into her house’s veranda dragging his motorcycle behind. Now his face is clearly visible. Oh, it's…! The door of her eyes banged shut. Her body relaxed. With a sad mood she drew the curtain over the window and started walking towards her room without latching the door. On her way, she picked up the bottle of cold water and put it back in the fridge. He’ll take it himself if need be.
Dinesh impatiently pushed open the door and stepped inside the house. He could see Shalini’s back in front of him. She was going into her room. Then thud! The door closed behind her back. Dinesh was left standing alone in the neatly decorated room.
Mridula Garg (born 1938) is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English. She has published over 30 books in Hindi – novels, short story collections, plays and collections of essays – including several translated into English. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Vasudha Sharma is a postgraduate student of Comparative Literature from Delhi. Her worldly interests range from oceanic literature to long walks to cooking shahi tukda especially for her Maa. She’s also a publishing and digital marketing enthusiast and has interned at multiple literary agencies, digital marketing agencies, and an indie publishing company. She plans to begin her PhD soon and eventually write to be read when a story worth telling knocks her door.