Pratap Reddy

 
“Unless you eat, how will you grow tall?” says my grandmother to Mithuna, who had refused a second helping.
“Mithuna’s always picky about food. In fact, she’s fussy about everything!” snorts Auntie.
“Leave her alone, Auntie,” I say. “You know she’s still quite upset.”
“Are you thinking about what happened last year, love?” says Grandma to Mithuna. “You must learn to let go, dear.”

Mithuna purses her lips. There’s an awkward pause for a few moments.

“The pickle is so fresh and delicious!” announces Auntie, prompting Grandma to give her another dollop of her pickled wedges of sunshine-yellow limes, green chillies, and slices of ginger soaked in brine.

“I made it last week with the limes Kumuda gave me,” says Grandma.

Kumuda is our neighbour in whose front garden the lime tree grows. She’s a cantankerous woman who has no patience with children. She’s always rude to us, and wears a permanent frown on her face. It comes from not having her own children, the servants say. I don’t remember a time when our neighbour didn’t complain of the noise we made whenever we played in our compound. We referred to her as Komodo Dragon, a name coined by Mithuna, rather than as Kumuda-Auntie as well-reared children ought to.

“Kumuda’s lime tree has started giving fruit all of sudden, it seems,” says Auntie. “It looked so hopeless last year.”
“From what I heard, she followed the advice of some tantrik, and within months the tree started flowering,” says Grandma.
“Tantrik!” I exclaim. “Does anyone seek a black magic guy’s advice in this age!”
“I wish the tantrik had given her advice on how to have children,” says Auntie. “The servants used to joke that her lime tree was as barren as Kumuda.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t gossip with servants,” says Grandma.

Mithuna and I look at each other, and smile.  

Standing foursquare to the elements:
Shrinking from summer’s hot embrace
Rejoicing in monsoon’s wet kisses
Shrugging off winter’s cold shoulder

The afternoon is warm and sultry. The breeze from the distant sea has not yet begun to infiltrate through the cocoanut groves along the shore. Under the creaking fans, we stretch ourselves on straw mats. Auntie, in addition, uses a small hand-fan made of cocoanut fronds.

At four o’clock in the evening, I’m awakened by the bustling in the kitchen. Grandma’s making evening tea. Auntie gets up reluctantly; she needs to make a show of helping Grandma.

“Where’s Mithuna?” she asks, seeing the unoccupied straw mat. “Mithuna! Mithuna!”
I sigh as I also get up, and say: “She must have gone up the hill, I’m sure.”
“That girl! What’s wrong with her!” says Grandma, coming into the room.
“Only you can guess,” says Auntie to me, “what your twin sister’s up to.”

I go outside and make my way to the back of the compound. Scaling the low wall, I scrabble up the hillside. I spot Mithuna. She’s scouring the hillside with her palm over her brow to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun.

“Mithuna! Do you still hope to find Whimsy after all these months? Be reasonable,” I say.
“There’s nothing wrong in hoping,” says Mithuna.

On the last day of our holiday last year, Mithuna’s pet dog—a small, furry Lhasa Apso—went missing. We had spent the entire day swarming up and down the hill, shouting for Whimsy until our throats were hoarse. A weeping Mithuna had to be forcibly bundled into the taxi that was taking us to the railway station.

“How can you expect a small pet dog to survive for a year in the wild? Come, let’s go back. Grandma is making tea and tiffin for us.”

A tired and sweaty Mithuna follows me halfheartedly as I walk away.

“When Daddy said he’d get you another puppy, you should have taken up the offer,” I say.
“Like buying a new pen because you misplaced the old one?”
“Sorry, girl. I know, it’s not quite as simple as that.”

I, too, had liked Whimsy. He was our parents’ gift for Mithuna on our thirteenth birthday. (I had received an adult-size bicycle.) I remember the first day the pup came home. You’d have taken him for a small ball of wool but for the eyes that sparkled when they caught the sunlight from the windows.

When we return to the house, Auntie says with a trace of scorn in her voice: “Did you find your Whisky on the hill?”

“Do I look like a drunkard to you, Auntie,” says Mithuna, in her rare attempts at conversation with elders.

“The name’s Whimsy,” I say peaceably, “just for the record.”  

At the time when Mithuna christened her pet dog, she was madly into Dorothy Sayers. She’s still crazy about mystery novels.

Ignoring us, Auntie fans herself, waiting for the tea and bajjies Grandma’s making.

 

In the entire universe,
Like you there’s none
A creation of some fabulist’s pen:

 An ugly duckling of a shrub
In a twinkling, turns into
a swan of a tree
What elixir, what penance or blood sacrifice
Has wrought this magical makeover?

 The next morning after a breakfast of dosas and chutney we lounge in the verandah, sipping coffee from steel tumblers. The sky’s downcast, as if on the verge of tears. A cool breeze blows down from the hills, ruffling the treetops.

There’s no TV or computer in the house to keep us occupied. For want of anything better to do, Mithuna and I set out to explore the overgrown lot around the house, hoping to spot a snake or stumble upon an anthill.

“Don’t go too close to the old well!” Auntie shouts after us, diligent as ever, referring to the disused well with its windlass falling to pieces in the back yard.

We find a pyramid of logs stacked against a back wall. Stuck into a log is an axe. Plucking it out, I start chopping wood just for the heck of it.

After a few minutes, Mithuna says, “May I try, please?”

Glad that Mithuna’s at last showing interest in something, I hand her the axe. “Be careful,” I say.

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