Mumbai, adrak chai and a coin | a short story
Safia, a journalist in her late 30s, is grappling with the loss of her mother, the only person who loved her unconditionally. In our world that's increasingly haunted by urban loneliness, she is struggling with grief and there's no one she can turn to. However, unexpected comfort comes her way.
Trigger warning: Story deals with the subject of death and grief.
Safia is passed out on her messy balcony in a run-down old society in
Mumbai. A Polaroid photo is entangled in her unkempt hair and there's a pillow she is
holding on to, like her life depends on it.
It’s just a bit after 4 a.m. and the city is already awake. A dull comforting hum is rising from the cityscape as its slowly rising again along the raging monsoon sea, to fight another day, another battle, another bout of rain.
Just then an ambulance zips past the lane next to the society. The morbid ambulance siren jolts Safia out of her dreamless stupor. She instinctively sits upright, still clutching onto the pillow. Breathing heavily, her mouth dry, her eyes stinging, her face puffy and tear-stained, her mind playing back that fateful day. Rain lashing down mercilessly, Safia trembling, calling for an ambulance, right next to her, maa lying limp…Safia vigorously shaking maa’s cold arm hoping she would wake up from her afternoon nap and cheerfully ask as usual,“Adrak-wali chai piyogi?”
It has been a week since her mother passed. Even the thought of entering the bedroom that maa and she shared, was painful. The room where they talked for hours…about life, her favourite storyteller, poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, her love for Kathak and her impromptu Kathak tukda performances, and her passion for poetry.
The random haikus and poems she would write for Safia and leave at her desk, the Sunday evenings with cups of adrak wali chai, stories from her life and endless dumb charades.
Maa, who taught her how to love unconditionally, with all her heart. To look beyond what the eyes see, beyond the trappings made by the society…to chase her goals with undying passion...To value the real, to care deeply, like it mattered.
Maa, who was her only anchor in this whole wide world.
In the dim light of the zero-watt bulb in her balcony, Safia is numbly staring at the Polaroid photo taken on her 39th birthday…maa hugging her tightly, as if packing all the love she ever needed in this lifetime in that one big calming bear hug.
A rude shock, a bad dream - the reality that she’s all alone in this house, in this wide world wrecked her. She falls helplessly on the chipped balcony floor…sobbing, she pulls the pillow close to her face and takes a deep breath – her maa’s pillow that still had the mellow scent of her favourite Yardley talcum powder and whiffs of Rajnigandha that she would keep next to her bedside. Her heart bursts into a million pieces, yet again…yet again it seemed she will not survive this night, the intense agony, the emptiness of it all.
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It's almost noon. Groggy, Safia opens her eyes to an unforgiving balmy Mumbai noon.
She's sweating profusely - that sinking feeling again, her head is spinning, and the city’s ruthless din is irritating her.
She gets up leaning heavily on the wall of her balcony. Steadying herself she looks down at the world going by…unbothered by her all-consuming pain. At that moment, the sun seemed to hit her harder and the dark clouds which once-upon-a-time were poetic, seemed like an inconvenience.
Looking away, she walks towards the kitchen and starts to brew some adrak chai - she was craving for it, that cup of adrak chai, just like maa made. As the chai brews, she frantically looks for ginger in the fridge. Anxiety starts to creep in through her nerves as she fumbles through every corner of the fridge and realizes...she has run out of ginger.
On a regular day, this would mean nothing. But today, her heart felt heavy. It was as if the last thing she was holding on to, for comfort, also abandoned her.
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Still unsteady, Safia is walking out of her apartment with her trusty backpack, an umbrella and an anti-anxiety pill in her system. While locking the main door, she felt a lump in her throat. Every day as she rushed out for the office, maa would gently pat her head and say, “Sab achaa hoga, dhyaan se jaana.”
Today, locking up an empty house without that word of reassurance, she felt dead inside.
Safia is a journalist, reporting on the country’s political landscape. Still in a state of daze, she hires an auto and gets in, folding her umbrella. Tying her greying hair up in a bun, she pulls out the day’s edition of the newspaper and scans through the pages. Her eyes land on a quote on love – smirking at it, she mumbles, “It’s all a lie. Everyone leaves, eventually.”
For a moment, she felt an intense wave of sadness mixed with anger – why did you leave me like this ma...why...She was staring into a void as the auto slowed down at a red-light. Someone taps on her arm. Jerking out of her stupor, she notices a transgender smiling warmly at her. She’s wearing a red saree, hair done up in a neat bun and her pretty purple nail paint chipping along its edges. She claps, smiling at her.
Safia smiles back, rummages through her wallet, pulls out what she could find and gives it to her respectfully. Then looking down, she tries to steady her shivering, cold hands and prepares to numb it all again, staring back into the void.
But the transgender didn't leave. She took out a one-rupee coin from her purse, bit it, said a prayer and gave it to her with love. Placing her hands on Safia's head, she said, “Didi ise sambhal ke rakhna – apka bhala hoga, dhyaan se jaana.”
Safia froze. These were maa’s words to her, every morning... It was as if the universe made sure those words reached her somehow, like a calming bear-hug she was longing for, from someone who could understand the depth of her grief. Clutching on to the coin, she breaks down...
As the rain lashes inside her, and outside on Mumbai roads, that quote from the newspaper she had slighted a while back raced into her mind.
It was Franz Kafka’s quote that said....“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”
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Image credit: Van Gogh's Starry Nights
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