Fishy Chronicles 65: Lockdown Diaries: A Secret

“Hey, what happened out there?” Anjali asked while I cooked lunch. Mumbai was undergoing a heat wave and all I wanted to do was stand in the sitting room with cold AC air hitting me. I focussed on chopping vegetables for a pulao and accompanying curry.

“Where?” I muttered, trying to see through the sudden blur – a drop of sweat fell into my eye.

“Uncle John and Aunty Glory seemed to be giving each other the third degree yesterday. Now, it’s business as usual.”

I stiffened and stopped myself from looking out of the kitchen window. I felt singed by Uncle’s disapproval yesterday and felt bad thinking about the family in the next building –Aunty and I had been watching an amour du coeur unfold between two neighbours for the past year or more. Now the cheating husband had been caught out and the whole thing had upset Uncle, who had in the gentlest way made known his displeasure over our dubious activities.

This morning Uncle John had insisted I come in and have tea with them, and I had managed to chat to the man in flat 502 (FC63)… and his wife. She had pushed her head out past him when he opened the door… and with a look of embarrassment he had introduced her and himself.

Wife could also mean girlfriend, I reasoned unnecessarily. Girlfriends became wives to circumvent 21^st century prudery in housing societies such as mine. I thought of my cousin Mona, thus named because his enthusiastic parents Moncy and Neena wanted a syllable each of their names to make up their son’s – a particularly Malayali habit. They could have gone with Monee, Neecy, Ceeny or Nemon. Or Nomen.

Anyway, Mona had apparently managed to get past the travesty that was his first name and get the girls. He had had a live-in relationship with a classmate on a campus in Karnataka, but eventually married someone his parents chose. Roma and I got to know about Mona’s romance while eavesdropping on his calls during our holidays in Kerala.

Post breakfast Aunty stood near me in the kitchen, while Uncle stood at a window to enjoy the morning sunshine.

“Is Uncle still angry?” I asked Aunty Glory.

“No. We had a fight yesterday… he gave me a lecture. I thought I’d never have to hear one at this age, but I guess I got complacent.”

“Is Uncle angry with me?”

Aunty snorted out a laugh. “Oh, no, darling. He’s angry with me for leading you on.”

“Oh.” I felt relieved I could salvage a useless reputation with Uncle.

“Of course, he knows very well what a con job and rabble rouser you are.” I squawked in protest. “But he has a soft corner for you. You are perfect. If you weren’t already an adult, we would have adopted you.”

“Awww. All lies, for sure.”

“Is my tea ready?”

“Would you have adopted me, Aunty?”

“Yes. In a manner. Your parents asked us to take care of you if they died prematurely. Did you know?”

I stopped straining the tea. “What?”

“In your early teens, when your father had his first heart attack, he had a talk with John and me. Apparently, your parents didn’t quite see you being happy with anyone else.”

“Oh! But they never told me.”

“I’m sure they had their reasons.”

“But even if they had died earlier, I would have probably gone to a relative.”

“No. Your father consulted a lawyer and drew up papers. He was that serious.”

I stared at Aunty, questions flooding my mind about my father’s sudden fears and inexplicable actions. I had never had a sense of it. Only that my patient father had started losing his patience more often, brooding, sometimes watching me and my mother intensely. He had begun to insist we handle the family’s financial matters and erupted when we didn’t co-operate.

I remembered a rant. “You can’t expect Joychyan to do everything for you! You have to stand on your own feet when I’m gone!” Uncle Joy was Papa’s older brother and Roma’s dad.

“Please, Papa. You’ll live forever,” I had teased him. He had given me a blistering stare and I had shut up. Even my mother had kept silent and the air had grown still and tense. After that we quietly went with him to the bank. I filled out all the pay-in slips, making mistakes and having to fill them out several times every visit. I regularly updated the notebook Papa had on his investments. He sent me to the bank on my own to renew fixed deposits, insisting I take the bus. I did not know then if he had so many interests or just wanted to get me out of my comfort zone, but he made me visit the post office, make enquiries about bonds at banks and made me spend hours filling out all manner of forms and reading out the accompanying literature. If the people at the post office were rude and I left without making enquiries or opening the kind of account Papa wanted, I was forced to go back the next day.

I felt Aunty’s hand on my arm. “Are you upset, my dear?”

“N-No, Aunty. Nothing like that. Just didn’t realise Papa felt that way. They never said anything to me… a-about this.”

“Hmm. Well, he thought Joy would be unhappy.”

“Er, but there was nothing in Papa’s papers…”

“Probably destroyed it once you came of age.”

“Maybe.”

“You turned out fine,” Aunty said reaching up to brush the hair off my forehead, a smile on her face.

“Broken and divorced.”

“Silly girl. Broken heals. Divorcées fall in love again… if they want to. There’s so much to do. You should enjoy life. That is some kind of work too, darling – to enjoy life!”

“Have you enjoyed life, Aunty?”

“Yes, I think John and I have. At least, I don’t have regrets. Some, not too many. But yes, we’re happy.”

And not on drugs. Happy because they knew how to be happy.

******

This is a fictional series about the 30-something narrator, based in Mumbai. Her former pet fish and parents’ former man Friday have returned to stay indefinitely, leading to a series of interesting situations.

After watching a wife discover her husband is cheating (FC64), Aunty Glory and the narrator are disturbed by what they have seen and their unhealthy interest in someone else’s torment. They take a break from watching members of their housing society. 

 

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I was now in bed, tossing and turning and a tad jealous of Anjali in blissful slumber beside me. My mind churned.

I had taken Anjali out for a walk around my building in the evening, and told her about the conversation I had with Aunty Glory.

“Hmm, I can believe it. Your dad thought of everything,” Anjali said.

“You don’t think it’s odd that he wanted me to live with them, rather than with Uncle Joy?”

“It is unusual. But he seems to have worried about your emotional well-being. Your EQ.”

“EQ? Where do you get this crap.”

“You asked me to tell you what I thought!”

“Yes, but you can tell me what you really think instead of giving me such nonsense gyaan.”

“The truth is… no one can handle the truth. Including you. Your dad’s reasoning seems to have been unusual. I don’t know if Uncle Joy would have wanted you, considering he had three kids of his own already.”

“Thanks!”

“Just the truth. And, as long as I’ve known you, Uncle Joy and you have fought like idiots… like cats and dogs. You hate being controlled, he loves to control. I think your relationship would have exploded in time. Think about it. Wouldn’t you have preferred John and Glory? Uncle John's saneness would have tempered all of Aunty Glory’s madness. And you would have turned out a hippie, not the repressed mess you are now. I say that in a nice way,” she said, holding her hands up. Fiery Anjali was taking pains to explain things as she saw them.

“Why do you think Papa did that?”

“May have had a sixth sense about his... er. Didn’t want you to become lost. You’d have been lost if you were with Uncle Joy. You’d have been happy with the Gonsalveses.”

“Even though they have kids?”

“By then the children were grown up, no?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know when Papa decided all this.”

“Aunty told you that it was after his first heart attack.”

“I was 13.”

“Okay. So there you have it. Uncle may have had a premonition. He was doing the right thing about tying loose ends.”

“Yeah. Why didn’t Mom say anything?”

“Really? Did you think they wanted to discuss their deaths with you?”

“Remember how Papa made me do all his bank work. I was only about 14 or so.”

“And I have to thank him so much for it all. I got trained in the process.”

“Hmm.”

“Look at it this way. If Uncle wanted you to be able to handle life without him, he succeeded. No?”

Everything pointed to that. He had made me aware. He had made me independent. He had given me hope and good sense, despite the odds.

I lay sweating in my bed, thinking of my parents. Loss was hard. My grief sometimes felt like an unmoveable mountain. But their choice of the Gonsalveses as adoptive parents surprised me. My parents were inexplicable. I hadn’t really known them. Or they had known me well.

                                                              ******

Fishy Chronicles 63: Lockdown Diaries: Tackling the Gs

“Where does Genie go every day?” I asked Fish.

There was a long silence in the fish tank and then Penaaz said, “Groceries?”

“The length of time he spends outside doesn’t justify the few bits and bobs he carries home.”

“Maybe he’s checking each veggie carefully,” Portas said, and a snigger made its way around the tank. I wanted to laugh too at the thought of Genie examining sultry fat tomatoes, but this was serious business. Be serious, I scolded myself. We hadn’t forgotten, or forgiven, how Genie had told the Gonsalveses that he had found Anjali and me rifling through his underwear drawer. Though we hadn’t, we were too embarrassed to show our faces to the elderly couple for several days until this morning when Uncle John ordered me to stop running away after I had left their breakfast at his doorstep and rung his doorbell. I was halfway to the lift when I heard his, “Wait! Come here… Now, my dear. This has gone on long enough.”

“Er, what?” I said, reluctantly shuffling back to his door. “What’s wrong, Uncle?”

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This is a fictional series about the narrator, her parents’ former man Friday Genie and former pet fish. They have returned from their travels and are staying with the narrator. 

Genie, the narrator and her best friend are stuck together in the lockdown due to the Corona virus pandemic but have not been talking for a few days. Uncle John helps her clear the cobwebs. 

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“What’s wrong is that you’re avoiding me. Tell me exactly what you did to annoy Genie… and why you’re behaving so oddly now.”

“Er, nothing. Nothing happened.”

“So why haven’t you been talking to Glory and me.”

“Really? I… must have been very busy.”

“We’ve been in lockdown for weeks. Everyone’s got all the time now. So what did you do to upset Genie?”

“What did he tell you?”

“You first. The truth.”

I tried to glare at Uncle but was too ashamed of myself to look him in the eye. But why was Uncle smiling that way? “Er, Genie caught us rummaging through his bedside table drawer.”

I saw shock on Uncle’s face, but it became bland in a couple of seconds. “Go on, my dear.”

“Er, then he wouldn’t talk to us for days even though we apologised over and over and over and made him mutton curry just the way he likes it, and those Bengali luchis he loves, and more. He ate it all, but still wouldn’t, won't, forgive us.” At this moment I felt a seething rage for Genie. I hoped his man boobs would sprout, if only to disturb him. But he looked trim and deeply content – if it was possible in this lockdown phase. Was it yoga? Tiny food portions?

“Go on, dearest,” Uncle’s voice dragged my attention away from Genie’s physique.

“There is nothing else, Uncle. It isn’t such a great sin, you know!”

“For a man, it means lack of trust.”

“For a husband, maybe.”

“For anybody!”

“Why are you acting as though you don’t know what happened, Uncle?”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“Yes, my dear,” Uncle sighed. “Genie wouldn’t pass on any of my messages to you… when I asked why he was annoyed he wouldn’t say. But he did ask me to say you had looked through his drawers. It was a prank, he said. I was surprised he’d asked me to do so, but I went along with it. I told him the charade couldn’t hold for long. Perhaps Glory would have enjoyed stringing you along, but Genie felt you wouldn’t believe Glory. Anyway, we’ve had a good time at your expense. We have rediscovered the world,” he chuckled, “through our binoculars. It is such fun to watch young people fight. But you must stop now. By the way, what did you really do?”

I groaned silently, then sighed and counted to ten, hoping Uncle would get tired of waiting for my answer. But he waited patiently, smiling all the while. “We opened his desk drawer and looked at his things, handled his diary and his pen. Opened his paper clips box. That’s the sum of it.”

“Hmm. Not good. Did you read his diary?”

“Er, we had a look. But there was nothing in it,” I said, cringing. Heat rushed into my face. My shame wasn’t going to end soon.

“I hope you learnt your lesson.”

“This incident alone constitutes a lifetime of learning, for sure.”

Uncle smiled. “I must say, my dear, I think there are huge gaps in your story and Genie’s. But I don’t think I’m going to come any closer to the truth. Would you like to come in, maybe rustle up some masala chai and eat breakfast with us.”

“I might give you something. A virus.”

“Or we could give it to you.” He held out his arms, and though I thought of Mr Soshal Distan Singh, the current joke going viral on WhatsApp, I went to Uncle and laid my head on his shoulder and felt his hand pat my back. “Naughty, naughty girl. We miss you, you know.”

“I miss you too. Made your favourite today – Bombay Toast. I’ll make tea.” I pushed Uncle in, and waited for a few seconds. Door 502 opened. He waved and smiled and I smiled and nodded and went into Uncle’s house.

I started, feeling embarassed. Uncle and Aunty had been watching me from just inside the doorway and were smiling broadly. “Aren’t you going to ask us who he is?” Aunty Glory asked.

“W-Who?”

“The young man who’s just moved in to the flat at the end of the corridor.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s see,” Aunty started counting on her fingers, “he gets up at 9 and leaves out his dustbin rather noisily. He makes tea, then comes to the door to get his paper with his mug in hand. That’s when he says hello to us. Such a handsome boy. Pity he doesn’t live in an apartment opposite us, else he’d have been the focus of our attention. And… there are no newspapers these days, but luckily for you, there’s still the milk which gives him an excuse to open his door… just as you ring our doorbell.”

“Er,” I interjected.

“He doesn’t seem to have a wife,” Uncle John added mischievously.

“But he moved in before we could be acquainted,” Aunty Glory grinned.

And he hadn’t put a nameplate on his door and the watchman still didn’t know his name... or wasn't telling. Plus there hadn’t been any post to crosscheck.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were into young men, Aunty. I would have surely found out his details,” I countered weakly.

The Gonsalveses laughed and followed me into the kitchen. Aunty’s arms rested around my waist and she chatted about things. I made tea and sat at the dining table, watching them eat. I missed them. Until Genie and Fish had returned from their travels, I’d had some of my meals with the Gs. My eyes moved to the photo of my parents and me on a side table. And then to the one with Genie, the Gonsalveses and my family on a tiny lace table cloth, atop the old, black, well-kept baby piano.

I had to make peace, force a truce, with Genie. Today.

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