Ghachar Ghochar

by Vivek Shanbhag

You can still get a good cup of coffee here, but it’s now a bar and restaurant. Not one of your low-lit bars with people crammed around tables, where you come to suspect that drinking may not after all be a wholesome activity. No, this place is airy, spacious, high-ceilinged. Drinking here only makes you feel cultured, sophisticated.

For instance, you can visit at seven in the evening when it’s busiest, order only a coffee and occupy a table for two hours, and no one there will object. They seem to know – someone who simply sits there for so long must have a thousand wheels spinning in his head. And they know those spinning wheels will not let a person be. Eventually, he’ll be overwhelmed, just like the serene spaces of those photographs that buyers devoured and turned into the cluttered mess we have around us today.

By now I suspect he knows the regulars at Coffee House better than they know themselves. Once, I came here when I was terribly agitated, and found myself saying out loud as he placed a cup of coffee in front of me: ‘What should I do, Vincent?’ I was mortified and about to apologize when he answered, thoughtfully: ‘Let it go, sir.’ I suppose it might have been a generic response, but something about his manner made me take his words seriously. It was soon after that I abandoned Chitra and whatever there was between us. My life then took a turn that led to marriage. Now, let me not give the impression here that I believe in the supernatural – I don’t. But then, neither do I go hunting for a rational basis for everything that happens.

She takes the glass of water in front of her and flings it at him. It misses and shatters against the wall. She’s surprisingly calm after he’s gone. She picks up the books and her bag. For a few moments, she sits with her eyes closed, breathing heavily. One of the boys sweeps up the broken glass. Coffee House had fallen silent as the few people present watched the scene unfold. Now the usual murmur resumes. On cue, as if this is all a play, Vincent goes to her table and she raises her head to order something. It appears Vincent already knows her order and has it ready in the wings. A gin and tonic appears on the table suspiciously quickly. I wave him over as he returns from her table. ‘What happened?’ Someone else in his place might say the couple is breaking up, or speculate that the man has been unfaithful. He might even observe that this is the first time the young woman has ordered a drink here. Not our Vincent. He bends down and says, ‘Sir – one story, many sides.’

How different are the words of those exalted beings from his? Words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered. If you think about it, even those held to be gods incarnate seldom speak of profound things. It’s their day-to-day utterances that are imbued with sublime meanings. And who’s to say the gods cannot take the form of a restaurant waiter when they choose to visit us?

That girl who just chased her friend away reminded me of Chitra. I wonder how often Chitra must have thrashed me like that in her thoughts – I’d slipped away from her without saying a word. Her pride would never allow her to come after me, of course.

The things she said about men I took as applying to myself.

the last strands of a relationship can snap from a single glance or a moment of silence. But how was I to explain this to her? There was no room for anything other than her anger. How then could there be tenderness between us? There was really nothing to our relationship, I suppose, certainly nothing physical. I never once held her hand, though I probably could have.

As I sit here in Coffee House today, my mind is more disturbed than usual. If I can recognize it, so can Vincent. He knows I’m eager to talk to him, and he comes to my table of his own accord. I tell him: ‘Another lemon soda, please.’ He goes away after giving me a look that seems to say, ‘Is that really all?’

He produces an opener from somewhere in his cummerbund and prises open the bottle cap. As he pours, the foam comes gushing up in the glass. Vincent waits longer than necessary between pours of the soda, as if giving me time. I can pretend all I want, but how can I possibly hide from this all-knowing man the fact that I’m desperate to unburden myself?

It’s natural to ask, I suppose, why the six of us should live together. What can I say - it is one of the strengths of families to pretend that they desire what is inevitable.

The central figure in our household is my chikkappa, Venkatachala, my father’s younger brother and the family’s sole earning member. He has a weakness for work, and is at it night and day.

His meals, his preferences, his conveniences, are of supreme importance to us all. The harder he toils, the better it is for us. He’s unmarried, and we fuss over him such that he’s bound to wonder what additional comfort marriage can bring at his age. He receives all the domestic privileges accorded to the earning male of the family. The first sound in the morning indicating he’s awake, and tea is made. When it’s sensed that he’s finished bathing, the dosa pan goes on the stove. He can fling his clothes in the bathroom or in a corner of his bedroom or anywhere at all in the house, and they’ll materialize washed and ironed in his room.

It was clear from Amma’s voice that she was nearing the end of her patience. I was amazed she could stand so firmly behind a lie.

We all knew that Chikkappa was fond of masoor dal curry. All of a sudden, the woman seemed crushed. She went down on her knees in front of the spilt curry, making helpless little noises. The liquid traced bright red trails along the ground, leaving behind dark clumps. The woman’s affection for Chikkappa was evident.

The woman had not abused us. She had not come here to pick a fight. We were thrown off balance by her love for one of us, and so we tore into her with such vengeance that she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

from the disbelief on her face that she had never been spoken to in this manner. Perhaps she waited because she was certain that Chikkappa would come to her aid. That must have been Amma’s worst fear too, not that it stopped her. On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that deeply wound other women. I’d never imagined Malati and Amma to be capable of such cruelty – they were like dogs protecting their territory. All that woman had wanted was to see Chikkappa once. But these two felled her with their words, and they kept at it as she sobbed there sitting on the ground.

It was embarrassingly clear now that there had been something between them. Venka and Tuvvi! Those private, affectionate names, now out in the open.

Before any of us could say anything, she got up and left. She walked briskly out of the yard and then turned for a moment to close the gate. Even now, when I recall the contempt in those eyes, it feels like someone just spit on me. She changed her mind about the gate, as if even the gate of such a house were too loathsome to touch. She walked off down the road and was soon out of sight.

There was no trace of Chikkappa. Why didn’t he respond when she called him? He could have addressed her as Tuvvi, invited her in. He knew we wouldn’t contest any decision he made. Then why didn’t he? All that was left now was the smell of the curry she had brought, inviting enough to make one wonder if there might not be a little left unspilled in the container. Amma ordered that the container be thrown away.

When I went to wash my hands, I noticed Anita glaring at me from the kitchen. She then emerged, swept past me muttering under her breath, and rushed up the stairs to our room. I followed her, a little surprised. ‘I didn’t abuse her,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s enough for a man to simply stand there and watch. It’s worse than shouting at her yourself. How could you all pounce on that woman without knowing a thing about her? Is it her fault alone? You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Not one of you had the guts to even hear her out. How could they treat another woman like that?’

How was I to tell her that Chikkappa must be protected at all costs? She wouldn’t understand. For that, she’d need to have lived those days with us – when the whole family stuck together, walking like a single body across the tightrope of our circumstances. Without that reality behind her, it’s all a matter of empty principle.

Appa enjoys our current prosperity with considerable hesitation, as if it were undeserved. He’s given to quoting a proverb that says wealth shouldn’t strike suddenly like a visitation, but instead grow gradually like a tree.

It’s as if all that we now have is nothing to him, and that is the root of our unease: what if this man loses his head, writes a will asking for his assets to be poured down the drain of some noble cause, and dies? Those swayed by lofty ideals don’t think twice about doing such things. Casting one’s own family out on the street is an achievement to them.

Every year, he’d take off for a day or two to another city for a sales conference, and return with a gift from the company. Our house’s alarm clock, iron box and suitcase all came this way. As the conference approached, he’d recount to Amma the speculation in the company about that year’s gift. We once went nearly a year without replacing our pressure cooker because of an unfounded rumour about what was to be given in the conference.

The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn’t afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent either.

There was a relieved smile on both their faces. ‘This is it. We’ve got it. Twenty times forty,’ said Chikkappa. ‘The sixty-four somehow appeared as eighty-four. I looked it over yesterday but missed it. You’ve caught it now,’ said Appa, beaming at his brother. I had never seen them like that – sitting near each other, talking. Their relief must have radiated into the kitchen. Before long Amma too joined them. A moment I can never forget: Appa leaning against the wall, clapping Chikkappa on the thigh and looking up to tell Amma, ‘He spotted it.’ It was fleeting, but at no other point in my life have I have felt so completely secure. ‘I’ll make another round of tea,’ Amma said with visible excitement and hurried into the kitchen. I sat up. I nudged Malati, who was sleeping on a mattress laid out perpendicular to mine. She was usually impossible to wake in the morning – it took repeated attempts. On this day, she got up at once when I told her the news. There was a festive air in the house that made it feel like it was the morning of Deepavali.

She can go to any lengths to protect them – like that time she waged a war against ants in our previous house.

My morning alarm was the sound of Amma sweeping. At dawn she’d splash some water on the thin strip of stone between our front door and the road, scrape it clean with a coconut broom and draw a small rangoli.

When Malati was old enough, Amma began trying to enlist her help with housework. But Malati had the ability to predict when she might be called on to do some work. She’d vanish on one pretext or the other: homework, bath, a school test, friend’s house, if nothing else an urgent trip to the toilet.

We had two types of ants at home. One was a small brisk-moving black variety that appeared only occasionally. But when it did, it came in an army numbering thousands. These ants entered the house in orderly columns, then began to wander everywhere in apparent confusion, always bumping heads and pausing before realizing something and rushing off in random directions. They had no discernible purpose in life other than trying our patience.

It was a losing battle though. For all that we did to keep them at bay, they’d seize on the smallest lapse and invade. Just when we thought we had the upper hand they’d turn up in the most unlikely places. I once opened my compass box to find it swarming with ants. Amma resorted to chemical warfare – all sorts of powders and poisons.

We had no compunction towards our enemies and took to increasingly desperate and violent means of dealing with them. We’d flatten them with our hands or feet or books wherever we saw them. If we noticed that they’d laid siege to a snack, we might trap them in a circle drawn with water and take away whatever they were eating. Then watch them scurry about in confusion before wiping them off with a wet cloth. I took pleasure in seeing them shrivel into black points when burning coals were rolled over a group of them. When they attacked an unwashed vessel or cup they’d soon be mercilessly drowned. I suppose initially we did these things only when we were alone, but in time we began to be openly cruel to ants. We saw them as demons come to swallow our home and became a family that took satisfaction in the destruction of ants. We might have changed houses since, but habits are harder to change.

Amma and I went to each house to tell them we were leaving. They all said, ‘Don’t forget us. Keep visiting.’ At the age I was then, this seemed absurd. I had grown up among them – how was it even possible to forget these people? Now I see what they meant.

Malati had always been unstable – a pile of gunpowder waiting to go off. The spark she needed came in the form of our improved finances.

We consulted each other when money was to be spent, gave precise accounts. We thought of the family as being interdependent: a person who spent money was also taking it away from the others. All that changed overnight. There was enough now to buy things without asking for permission or informing anyone or even thinking about it. Appa’s hold on the rest of us slipped. And to be honest, we lost hold of ourselves too.

Soon the house was crammed with expensive mismatched furniture and out-of-place decorations. A TV arrived. Beds and dressing tables took up space in the rooms. In retrospect, many of the new objects had no place in our daily lives. Our relationship with the things we accumulated around us became casual; we began treating them carelessly.

It was never easy to confront Malati. You’d have to listen to ten words for each one you spoke.

There was no one at home who could stand up to Malati in a battle of words. Rather, there was no one until Anita joined the household.

It’s true what they say – it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us. Money had swept us up and flung us in the midst of a whirlwind. We spent helplessly on Malati’s wedding. No one asked us to; we simply didn’t know how to stop.

The main actors in that month-long orgy of lavishness were Amma and Malati. I don’t think they even knew what they wanted. They’d set out every morning to shop. And when they were at h...

Perhaps it is not right to conflate Malati’s short-lived marriage with the wedding expenses or our family’s wealth. But I can’t help wondering if she would have given up as easily if Appa had still been a salesman.

Malati led the way, still fuming. I felt it was mostly Malati’s fault, but I wasn’t going to say anything with her in this frame of mind. Appa hadn’t said a single word all through the afternoon’s farce.

In the new house, we were locked in the cells of individual rooms, and there was no opportunity to exchange casual confidences. Lying alone in my room, I sometimes wondered if Malati’s happiness would have been better served had Sona Masala not existed at all.

Still, ever since Amma learnt that Anita despises avarekaalu, she buys them every time she spots them in the vegetable market. She can do this because she controls the kitchen. There’s a daughter-in-law at home, there’s a daughter who’s left her husband and set up camp here, yet Amma clings on to the kitchen. It’s not her fault either – it’s all she knows.

Then there’s Malati, about whom Anita often says, ‘If she wasn’t like this, the situation in our house would have been so much better.’ I wouldn’t dare agree even in private, but I know in my mind that she’s right.

Amma flares up every time Anita speaks disrespectfully to me, or makes barbed remarks about my sloth or my tendency to procrastinate or brings up the fact that my rightfully earned personal income is precisely zero. It’s also Anita’s often-repeated allegation that this last fact was not properly revealed to her before marriage.

These three speak to themselves – that is the prelude, the shot fired in the air to challenge an adversary to battle. The idea is to enquire if the enemy is prepared and willing to fight. If there’s enthusiasm on the other side, a reply is heard. That too is aimed at no one in particular. ‘Oh, this house is crawling with cooks, so each member of the family can be served a different dish,’ says Amma. How can Anita stay silent? She drags her sister-in-law into the ring: ‘The house has turned into a shelter. This is what happens when all sorts are admitted. People should live in their own houses …’ This, of course, is a reference to Malati, who’s left her husband’s house. Malati might wait for a while to see if Amma comes to her defence. In any case, she’s perfectly capable of holding her own: ‘Why just a shelter, it’ll soon be a brothel. When the men in the house aren’t firm, women will stand at the windows.’ This particular arrow from Malati is aimed jointly at Anita and me. It’s a canard built on Anita being friends with a man in the neighbourhood.

But it turns out that both Malati and Anita find it unbearable that I’m not in the least a suspicious husband.

That might sound like a tame comeback, but the sword of insult seldom cuts on the surface. No, it lacerates from within and leaves wounds that reopen with remembrance.