Fishy Chronicles 68: Lockdown Diaries – Pinning Down An Insecurity

Cattle egrets. View from our window. 
Photo: A. Peter

After tailing Genie and finding out what he was up to (Stalkers Ahoy) each morning, things went back to normal. More or less. What could be normal in a pandemic-induced lockdown? There was no doubt that Genie knew we had set out to follow him that day. We discovered there hadn’t been a woman, or a secret gym. 

Despite our interfering behaviour and the run-in with the fat cop Motu (Fatty), Genie stayed cordial. When we tried to follow him out the next morning, he put a decisive stop to it. “Mhatre walks along these lanes in the morning.”

“Who’s Mhatre?” Anjali said.

“The policeman you threw the stone at yesterday… you call him Motu. His name is Mhatre. And, in all probability, he will be hanging about Sea View Society waiting for you.”

Anjali’s tea went up her nose and I slapped her back several times. I pulled up a corner of her t-shirt for her to blow her nose in, but she slapped away my hand and looked at me fiercely. I rushed away and got her a tissue.

“I did not throw a stone at Motu!”

“Hmm. That’s what the watchman said you did. Made Mhatre furious. I’ve never seen him run as fast as he did after you!”

Anjali and I stared at Genie silently. We were cornered. Genie knew we were barefaced stalkers and he stood in front of us, his face stretched into a broad smile and pink from the effort of holding in his laugh. Fish were laughing like hyenas in their tanks. I wondered sometimes if Fish had filled in the gaps for Genie or whether we were so naturally transparent that our every thought showed along with our gutless guts.

Anyway, we let that argument go. And hung back.

But every morning we were up early, sipping our teas, mostly to wish Genie a cheery good morning and then watch him through the peephole. Zeba’s door opened at the same time Genie stepped out. She tottered out in a long sleeveless caftan and high heels and canoodled. Genie’s deep voice sounded full of warmth and honey, but was low enough for us not to hear. Did he know we were watching him? Was this the way the rest of my life was going to pass… as an artless voyeur? On the other hand, Anjali was a writer, with many interests. But I wondered if she regressed when she was with me.

After our surveillance efforts at the door, we’d move to the sitting room window and watch who was watching Genie leave the society. Quite a few women, we found. And men. We realised many of the men were out to watch the women.

All this had become a morning ritual and Anjali gnashed her teeth watching Zeba with Genie. Everyday! But, we just couldn’t figure out what was going on with everyone else.

The paying guest (PG) boys, two sets in flats in adjoining wings, would wake up very early and squeeze into the windows in their sitting rooms. Both sets watched the PG girls on the sixth floor opposite my building, who wore thin night dresses or shorts and tank tops leaning out to catch a glimpse of Genie. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

And yet our Genie would walk leisurely towards the gate, nodding at Mrs Duggal and her friends. Some women would lean out of their windows and shout good morning. Their husbands would watch grumpily from another courtyard-facing room, or from their kitchens. Apparently, an annoyed spouse didn’t faze Genie.

“Do you think Mrs Duggal is happy when Genie looks her way?” I asked Anjali, who was keenly watching other spectators with the binoculars. I wondered when Peaceful Society would send us a notice for our “disruptive behaviour”. That was what Uncle John had called it, smiling sweetly.

“Any woman would choose Genie over Duggal!” Anjali said trying to squeeze through the bars of the window. If we held the binoculars outside the bars, we could see a little better.

I clucked my tongue in irritation. That was not what I was wondering. Mrs Duggal must love her odious husband in some way – she still got upset when he looked at other women!

“Do you think he loves Mrs Duggal?” I persisted.

“I don’t think Genie loves Mrs Duggal.”

“I meant does Mr Duggal love Mrs Duggal!”

“He goes back to her every day, na? So, most likely, yes. She’s probably grown on him. She’s the rajma chawal of his life. He’d go hungry and waste away without her,” Anjali chuckled at her own humour.

“Where else could he go?”

“To his mummy.” I glared at her and Anjali laughed some more. She removed the binoculars from her eyes, moved her body back into the flat and turned the binoculars on the boys upstairs. They waved and whistled at her. We saw the PG girls look at the boys. Though there seemed to be some interest between the two groups, I didn’t see them mingle in the building complex.

“They’ve all got girlfriends and boyfriends,” Anjali said reading my mind.

“How do you know?”

“They bring them to their apartments. Then there’s either a huge party, where there are lots of guys and girls, or things are unnaturally quiet. That’s when you know they’re up to something. Did you know the couple in B-606 are not married?”

“No. But how can you tell?”

“I saw an elderly guy going about with her for several days and asked the watchman. He said the old man was 606’s father. Then I asked about the guy who was in her apartment – I called him her husband. The watchman corrected me instantly. Said it was her boyfriend, who had to move out so her old man didn’t know the guy was living there. Though when he said it, it sounded positively… full of masala.”

“Would you live with someone?” I don’t know why that question shot out of my mouth.

“Maybe. If I liked someone. But only as a precursor to marriage. For now. You?”  

“I keep thinking someone would have their fun and leave me. It’s like how we Surianis have marriages quick on the heels of an engagement – we’re afraid the marriage may not materialise if the two get to know each other during the engagement period.”

“I’m confused. Was that a Yes or a No?”

“I’m confused too. I doubt it. Besides, with my luck, even if I moved to the Himalayas, or another city, I’m sure someone would make a connection eventually and report me.”

“Even if someone does, you’re an adult. Everyone’s doing it. So can you.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember it… if I ever take such an extreme step.”

“See that word is all wrong – negative. Extreme. Drastic. Just sounds like a Never or Impossible. Do you know that many people get engaged and live together and then marry? Many Indians in the US and UK do that.”

“They don’t have their relatives in their faces.”

“They probably do, and care about what their families think, but it happens anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Well?”

“No.”

“That’s my girl. Prudery is embedded in your DNA. No wonder Joy Uncle and Saroj Aunty love getting their claws into you. After working their magic on their own kids, they are training their guns on you. The ‘action’ in their retired lives,” Anjali snorted derisively.

I’d always been their target anyway. “Why do you say that?”

“I thought you being divorced would keep you out of their line of vision. But frankly Danny’s appearance (FC 54) surprised me. Didn’t it?” Anjali said.

“Yes.” The only people who’d suggested remarriage were old friends of my parents. After meeting several divorcés, I had begged my parents to stop setting up the meetings. I had been a little confident then of finding someone on my own, but now it looked like I’d stay single forever. I turned around and saw Fish watching me quietly. I’d be an old maid, with old fish and maybe an aging parakeet. I wasn’t sure if Anjali or Genie would keep me company. I felt an uncomfortable weight in my stomach and my heart tightened painfully.

Anjali turned to look at me and put the binoculars down. “Let’s decide that by the time we’re 65 or 70, we’ll make serious plans to move nearer each other. Either you near me or me near you.”

I nodded. We had thought of this occasionally over the years. We were too young to think this far – being in our early 30s – but neither of us had parents or support of any sort.  

“What if you marry?” I asked.

“What if you marry?”

“We’ll keep the plan at the back of our minds. You and me, if all else fails.”

Anjali crawled out of the window box and sat on the window seat next to me. The boys upstairs continued to wave at us and finally we waved back and moved backwards and out of their view.

                                                              ******

This is a fictional series about the Mumbai-based narrator and her floating coterie.

Fishy Chronicles 67: Lockdown Diaries: Stalkers Ahoy

I lay in bed, unwilling to get up. I had slept fitfully and now my body felt leaden. I waited for more sunlight to seep into my bedroom.

Lying next to me, Anjali’s eyes were closed and her breathing even. I had changed into a t-shirt and jeans in the middle of the night.

Being awake at night is no fun. You think of things you shouldn’t. Of people who aren’t good for you. Of things that twist you. When you lie awake, lucid sane thoughts drift out into the night like vapours through windows with gaps around their edges.

I watched the shadows on the walls. Sometimes when I woke at night they looked like burglars trying to enter through my bedroom window. Sleep would desert me instantly and, after I had screamed senselessly and silently in my mind and my heart beat had steadied and one eye had opened, I would realise that the shadows were the shivering leaves of the tree outside, a night breeze rustling them and the light from the tubelight outside magnifying the leaves shapelessly. It did not help that the watchmen outside banged their sticks on the ground at intervals. To scare ghosts away or stay awake. Who knew.

And then, later, not too often, when I would lay back and take deep breaths, and try to calm my mind and body enough for sleep to claim me, I would remember that my windows had bars on them and a burglar would have to be a human stick insect to squeeze through.

I tiptoed into the sitting room, stopped and backed away quickly. WTF!

I was mesmerised by the sight in front of me.

Genie was naked except for a pair of clinging short white shorts… and was horizontally balanced on his hands, the muscles in his torso, stomach and arms straining – clearly rippled for the onlooker’s benefit. He deserved to be on the Irish Beefcake Calendar. He deserved to be a pin-up! On the cover of the male equivalent of Playboy! The cream-coloured shorts looked as though it was part of his fair skin and thus he looked naked. It was strange but though I had sometimes drooled over this handsome man, I had never pictured Genie without clothes. This was close enough. Have mercy!

I heard a whistle in my ear and nearly jumped a foot. Arms grabbed me tightly and I turned to swear, my heart running like it wanted to escape my throat through my mouth.

“Shhh! He’ll guess we’re staring. It won’t be good if we get caught!” Anjali said in a whisper that I could barely hear and dragged me back behind the hallway curtain. “Why didn’t you tell me! What the eff! Look at him – like a fat scoop of creamy icecream on a short toothpick. Lick fast!”

I glared at Anjali. Any moment now Genie would catch us ogling at him and my game would be up. “Shhh, Anjali. Please stop!”

“What are you up to? I saw you change your clothes in the middle of the night. How could you leave me out of things… shit! He’s coming!”

Indeed. Genie had started to lower his body to the ground and his forehead puckered into a frown. I stayed near the curtain. He folded his body and started doing another asana – a deep-breathing one.

I could feel Anjali press into me. She had worn a pair of jeans and the t-shirt she slept in. Its colour had leeched away long ago and now it was shapeless and grayish white. She had once assured me that we had bought it together and didn’t I remember that day. The t-shirt still fit and the cloth was comfortable and she slept well in it and so it was multipurpose.

Suddenly Genie was untangling himself. He smiled at Fish and his deep gravelly voice asked if they had slept well. I pushed back and felt sudden panic. Anjali moved into the kitchen. I ran into the bedroom. Shit! Genie’s room. I hurried out and debated whether to go into my room… but I saw Genie through a small gap in the curtain, he was moving towards this corridor. I sprinted into the kitchen and looked around. Bugger! No place. Then I saw the gray t-shirt squeezed into the narrow space between the window and the fridge. Genie moved the curtain and I pushed my body into Anjali's and pressed back.

“Ow, you’re suffocating me!”

“Shh!” I shrank back as far as I could and luckily Anjali held her breath and stayed still. Genie had stopped near the kitchen to listen, holding the hallway curtain away from his face with his rolled-up yoga mat sticking out of his armpit. After what seemed like several minutes of his gaze piercing the dim light of early sunrise, he went to his room.

I moved away from Anjali and whispered. “He’s gone to his room. Let’s go back to ours.”

“No. Let’s wait here.”

“What if he comes back to make tea?”

“Good point. Does he?”

“Yes. Has a cup and disappears.”

“You’ve been watching him,” Anjali grinned.

“No. That’s been his habit for years. Nothing changed even after he returned,” I said, feeling defensive but trying to keep my tone neutral and hoping Anjali would believe me.

“Only his body has become more muscled. What do you think he did out there?” Anjali said, referring to the period Genie chose to travel.

“I don’t know. What would build muscle like that? Rock climbing?”

Anjali shrugged. I thought it was intense body building. I couldn’t remember if the Genie that lived with us earlier had worked out. Anjali pushed me away from her and fanned her face with her hands. I moved quickly to my bedroom, with Anjali in tow. Just in time.

                                                                ******

This is a fictional series surrounding the Mumbai-based narrator and her parents’ former man Friday Genie.

                                                                ******

We heard Genie moving about the kitchen, lighting the stove and making tea. I had studied his habits leading up to today and knew that he would pour tea into a flask and then drink his mug of tea and eat two biscuits near the fish tank. He’d sit on the ground and look out of the window at the sunrise that was blocked by the buildings opposite the window.

When the sun rose some more, Genie would move back into the kitchen and then quickly leave home. I had checked the kitchen cupboards, except those on top. I couldn’t because that meant using the ladder and exciting questions from Anjali and Genie. But from the noise, I knew Genie opened those cupboards every morning.

I heard the door close. I moved to the door and felt Anjali follow me. “No need to come with me, Anjali. I’ll be back soon. Just open the door for me.”

“No way, José.”

“Please don’t. I just need to see where Genie’s going!”

“Me too! If you don’t hurry, we’ll lose him!”

Bloody good point! I closed the door with my key, so that Genie didn’t hear us and we tiptoed down the stairs. We watched him from a safe distance and once he was out of the gate, we began to run. We stayed behind the trees on the narrow footpath and every now and then hugged a gate post, some of which were very dirty.

Near the end of our road, near the public garden, Genie bent to hand out small packets to some people sitting on the side of the road. I felt embarrassed at spying on him. I looked at Anjali across the road. She was staring at Genie. We had agreed to split and to run in different directions any time we felt we would be caught. About 20 minutes later, Genie was sitting on his haunches, watching some stray dogs eat. There were a couple of cats rubbing against him.

I turned to go back and slammed into a policeman. “You’re not wearing a mask! It is curfew, you’re supposed to be at home.” He glared at me. I backed away and tripped and fell. He leaned over me and gave me an angry lecture in Marathi. I turned my head to see if Genie had heard the commotion. I could see him get up. I turned to look at Anjali. She ran into the middle of the road and threw a stone at the street lamp next to me.

It hit the wall of a nearby building and exploded into small bits, spraying the policeman, the watchman and me with sharp pebbles and sand. The policeman swore loudly and began to chase after Anjali. She turned and ran into the housing society behind her. It was a big one with much foliage and several buildings. I scrambled to my feet and followed the policeman. I could see Anjali disappear behind a building on the left. To the right, Anjali, to the right! That was where the second exit was.

The policeman ran to the building on the left. I began running after him, frightened of what he might do to her if he caught her. He had his lathi in his hand. I was sure he was breaking the law, or maybe not. It was 6.47am on my watch.

Suddenly Anjali reappeared from behind another building and waved with both hands to get my attention. She pointed to the exit nearest her and waved her arm in a circle, and then made tea-drinking motions. I jabbed the air with my thumb to show affirmation. She was going to run out the other exit and meet me at the chaiwalla. We would avoid Genie as well.

I saw the policeman run out from behind the building on the left and look at all the other buildings bewildered. He looked like he knew his quarry had escaped but still had a hunt on his hands. He saw me and shouted for me to come towards him. I moved backwards towards the gate and heard the policeman swear in rage, but then I heard running footsteps behind me. Before he could see me, I saw him. Genie!

I ran behind a building on my right. I heard two sets of footsteps. I stopped listening and ran as soundlessly as I could, weaving in and out of the buildings through the stilt parking. I knew this place well because I had church friends here and sometimes they liked to chat in the dark in the parking area.

I had no choice but to get to the other exit and try and catch up with Anjali at the chaiwalla. I had thought of waiting out the policeman, but what if he brought reinforcements. But when I thought of it logically what was he going to do? Arrest me for not wearing a mask? Or for violating curfew during lockdown? Or maybe for not obeying an officer of the law. What if he beat me?

I ran until I reached the chaiwalla and fleetingly thought of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Our chaiwalla was clean shaven and skinny in comparison. Like he didn’t eat often.

I saw Anjali, leaning against the teashop's wall, red in the face and gasping for breath. “Thank… God, you’re… safe. I… thought… Motu… would… run… after… you… next!” Anjali said in between deep breaths.

“He… did."

“If… we… are… struggling to… breathe… after… a short… run like… that… we need… more exercise!”

“Ye… ah!” My lungs were on fire and seemingly unwilling to expand in a hurry. I didn’t want Motu to catch me. I’d heard Uncle John say that his neighbour had gone for a morning walk and had turned around hurriedly when he saw a group of policemen rounding up several migrants, clutching their meagre belongings, and a couple of our neighbours. He had watched them do Indian sit-ups, which meant sitting and standing when ordered – all the while holding their earlobes. It seemed an exercise in stripping the soul of dignity. We were punished this way as school children – useless empty vessels with no rights or feelings.

“So sad the chaiwalla isn’t here,” Anjali said looking at the grimy, tin-roofed shanty on the main road that passed off for a tea house. On good days it had a small clientele sitting inside, feeding on bad samosas and oily batata vadas. But the pandemic and its consequent lockdown had likely killed small businesses like these.

Anjali pulled out a tiny packet of Parle-G biscuits and I ate one whole, starving from our recent exercise.

She looked around, smiling. It was rare to see Mumbai at a standstill, when the only things sharing space with you were joyfully noisy birds and hungry-looking strays. We saw people shop for essentials, but they disappeared quickly. She put a biscuit in her mouth and offered me another.

But Anjali’s eyes widened suddenly and the biscuit fell out of her mouth. I turned to look and felt shock course through me.

“I left chai in the flask for you,” Genie said, his brown shoulder-length hair moving gently in the breeze, standing some feet away with his thumbs hooked into his pockets and his eyes hooded. A couple of stray dogs stood at his feet, wagging their tails and smiling at us.

“Oh, we wanted to go for a walk. On an empty stomach. Thought we’d go back and have the tea. But…” I shrugged and gestured at Anjali and the fallen biscuit, “we couldn’t wait that long.”

“I see,” he said and set off briskly towards our building. Anjali and I eyed each other and chewed our biscuits slowly. It was like being in a raging cyclone that barely blew up a skirt.

Maybe there was more to come.

                                                                ****** 

Parle-G biscuits sold just outside Madame Tussauds, London. (Photo: A. Peter)

Fishy Chronicles 66: Lockdown Diaries: Of Just Desserts

The Covid-19 lockdown stretched our days and one day melded into the other, much like waves in the sea. There was no start and no end – just an indeterminate expanse.

Enforced confinement is an unusual state for all three of us. Anjali and I bickered often. Sometimes Genie would be irritated and disappear for long periods, which was a dampener.

A normal day involved housework, cooking, eating, some shouting, on a lucky day some swearing, on a good day lots of jokes and then the TV would come alive to drown out the noise. Most days it started with the news and then veered to the Fox Life channel and then we'd subside into our secret food hell. Genie and Anjali would often turn to me and say, "You've  got to cook that." 

Anjali had taken to joining me at the Gonsalves home, then we’d walk around our housing complex several times until Mr Duggal, the secretary of our housing society, alerted by the annoyed security guards, would ask us to get off the grounds and go home. As soon as we heard the loudspeaker being switched on and Mr Duggal clearing his throat for his big announcement cum name-shame business, we disappeared. So when he did make his announcement, we were looking out of our sitting room window. Neighbours would come to their windows and see other walkers on the ground and, I assumed, wonder why Mr Duggal was making it personal by naming just us.

As in most apathetic Mumbai societies, no one stood up for us. But after the fourth time, Anjali suggested we write a formal letter of complaint to Peaceful Society committee, alleging harassment.

“What do you say, Genie?”

“Hmm.”

“Why is he targetting us when the garden is littered with walkers!” Anjali had a way with words. Littered was apt. Even if lockdown was in place, it meant nothing to Mumbaikars – especially in Peaceful Society. Apparently social distancing was for other people. When neighbours stopped to talk, they invaded our private space and, all too often, we found ourselves stepping back. Surely the deadly virus would overpower a weak mask and conquer all within droplet-catching distance.

Everything was due to the lockdown. We nagged Genie and our every waking moment was devoted to annoying him. He was our mouse and we were two cats arranged on either side of him. Genie ignored us totally, but still made us tea in the mornings and evenings and snacks.

“Do you have to let that awful thing drink out of your cup every day?” Anjali spluttered one morning when she saw my darling mosquito friend Norbert take the first sip of my morning tea, flavoured with lemon grass. I heard Nobby’s satisfied sigh. Yes, I nodded.

“Tell her the universe will not spin if I don’t,” Norbert said.

“The universe will not spin if he doesn’t drink from my cup,” I told Anjali absently, watching my friend fly off and sit on the fish tank.

“Bullshit. Plus, imagine all the disease in his proboscis.”

I imagined it. And let it go. Life was too short. It hadn’t killed me so far. Though I did not know what disease, if any, lurked in me. Norbert buzzed around me and settled on my ear. I shivered from the tickle. “Don’t listen to that silly girl.”

“Norbert is welcome to drink from my cup any time,” Genie gave us a killer grin. And suddenly Norbert was off and flying towards Genie. I saw him sit on Genie’s ear, whispering animatedly.

“Same thing. Disease,” Anjali grumbled. “Where is your electric fly swatter?”

Norbert jumped off and flew towards Anjali. “Nobby, no!” I shouted. He held still in midair and then flew back to Genie and hid in his hair.

“Tell your friend that was a close shave,” Nobby said. How easy it was to rile yoga-loving Nobby – wasn’t meditation supposed to calm the soul?

“Er, we don’t have a fly swatter,” I told Anjali.

                                                      **

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.

Lockdown Dairies revolve around the Covid-19 confinement. Time hangs heavy for the narrator... with many irritations.  

                                                     **                                                                             

"Why not?"

“We don’t have a mosquito problem,” I said waving my hands at the room. We had never had one after my acquaintance with Nobby and we were off limits to his friends.

“Bullshit.”

“Have you been bitten while you’ve been here? Ever?”

“Er, not that I can think of. But I’ve seen swarms of mosquitos outside. It won’t hurt to keep an electric bat handy. What if those guys get in?”

“They won’t.”

“How can you be sure.”

“Have they bitten you while we’ve walked about… even at night?” Anjali was silent. “That’s Nobby’s doing.”

“Bullshit. I wear Odomos.”

“I don’t and I’ve never been bitten… at least in this society.”

“Sorry, my darling, I can only manage the guys in my territory. Can’t do a thing when you go outside Peaceful Society, you know that,” Nobby said, sounding upset.

“Of course I know that, my sweet yoga-boy,” I said to Genie’s ear. I suddenly knew what I was going to cook for breakfast. I looked at Genie. He had had a bath, and his hair was wet. He still wouldn’t say where he went every morning. I looked out of the window and took a deep breath to quell my irritation. Some ladies in the building opposite ours were watching. I went to the window and closed the thin curtains.

“You're shutting out the light. Leave the curtains alone,” Genie ordered.  

“Er, there are some girls in Wing E watching us.”

“Some guys too. Open the curtains.”

I pushed the curtains apart slowly, looking out curiously. One topless married guy looked away. But Mrs Bakshi and her daughter from the eighth floor and the paying guest girls on the sixth looked on unabashedly.

“Some would say it is tit-for-tat,” Genie said coming up behind me, amusement in his voice and nodding vigourously at the overjoyed women.

“Why tit-for-tat?”

“Ask your binoculars.”

I felt chastened. Embarrassed by my activities of the past few weeks. “Karma is probably the word to use,” I mumbled.

“Just desserts. Tit-for-tat. Karma. Same thing.”

                                                          **

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. 

 

                                                                                       ****** 

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 64: Lockdown Diaries: Love Hurts

“Look, dear,” Aunty Glory said when I started clearing away the breakfast dishes. “Genie and Anjali have kissed and made up.”

I dropped a cup of fine China and Uncle John steadied the plates that started clattering in my arms. “Careful, my dear. They’re not beyond a little spying either,” he tilted his chin in the direction of my building. “I fear, darling,” he cooed in Aunty’s direction, “we’ve become lawless and unscrupulous.”

But Aunty hadn’t heard because she was now tottering over to the French windows and waving and blowing kisses at Genie and Anjali. The two were squeezed tightly into my tiny kitchen window looking chummy and the binoculars were dangling from Genie’s hand outside the window. Clearly they had been bonding for a while and watching the world from their vantage point. I wondered why they couldn’t have done the same in the more spacious faux-French windows in the sitting room. They waved and blew kisses in Aunty’s direction.

Aunty was right. Something had made things okay between the beauty and the beauty… or the two beasts – I couldn’t decide which one was the beast and both were beautiful to me. I wondered what had happened to improve things between them. But I was not keen to go back and find out. The lockdown (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) had been making me lethargic and cranky and the brief period I got lurking about outside in the guise of delivering food made me feel lightheaded.

At the kitchen sink, I scrubbed the plates and looked around, wondering what to clean. I had swept and swabbed the Gonsalves home yesterday, and they had been upset but very grateful. “It will give you some exercise, pumping your heart – in a good way,” Anjali had told me a few days ago, when I had returned home sweating like a pig after such a workout. Sweat had poured and I felt it uncomfortably everywhere – like watery pools on my scalp, trickling past my ears, into my eyes, sticking my clothes to my skin and Anjali’s matter of factness annoyed me. However, the chance discovery of a vacuum cleaner in the G home had me doing all sorts of things with it. I even checked YouTube for tips.

I felt a body behind me and the plate I was soaping fell into the sink. I drew a deep breath trying to slow my heart rate. “A-Aunty, you’ve got to stop moving so quietly.”

“Do you remember the lovebirds in wing A (Love Thy Neighbour)? The husband of the nightshiftwali and the wife of the frequent-flyer businessman?”

“Yes. Has the lockdown spelt doom for their love affair?” I joked. Not nice, stop!

“Nightshift seems to suspect something.”

“What do you mean?”

“She looks at his phone when he’s not about.”

“Okay...”

“And I’ve seen her crying.”

I set down slowly the plate and scrubber in the sink and turned to Aunty. “Oh?” I felt helpless, sad feelings buffeting me boisterously. “You think she’s read something on his phone?”

“I’m not sure… I think he’s got a password to get past. She suspects something, but isn’t sure.”

“How can you say?”

“He takes his phone everywhere. The one time I saw him leave his phone behind she got hold of it, and he was back in an instant.”

“Aunty, you’ve got to stop watching and leave them alone.”

“We’ve got to tell her that her husband is having an affair!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Stay out of it, Aunty! Nothing good will come of it.”

“Everything bad is going to fester, the good will get lost in the mess. He needs to be confronted. She needs peace.”

“I don’t think we’ll be any help. Things may sort themselves out. We may worsen things with idle insinuations. Besides, it’s the lockdown. Everyone is on edge.”

“I’d be suspicious of John if he had to take his phone with him everywhere, including the loo.”

“Thank your stars Uncle doesn’t, Aunty. That would be a pain to sanitise. But, you know, these days people take their phones into the loos all the time. They need to watch TV while they poop or read the paper.”

“Is that why you refuse to handle Anjali’s phone?”

“One of them.”

“And you’re okay touching Genie’s?” Aunty peered up into my face.

“Shee! No!” I felt like scrubbing my hands with bleach and dousing myself with Dettol. “Does he really?! How would you know, Aunty?”

“KKKK, kkk, kkkk!” Aunty laughed shrilly. When she gained control of herself, she pinched my cheeks and hugged me. “No, darling, I wouldn’t know. I can’t see into his bedroom or the toilet. I was teasing you. But why would you need to touch Genie’s phone?”

“Yesterday he gave it to me to… to charge the battery,” I said. At this rate, I’d have to watch everyone visiting the loo. Anjali had developed the habit when her publisher gave her a Netflix subscription. She had gone haywire, especially since she didn’t have a TV in the little Himalayan town she was living in. The publisher had threatened to cut the service when he realized why she wasn’t delivering her manuscript… still, to her credit, she righted herself and finished writing the book. Now, she goes on Netflix binges between books. I don’t know how she has the willpower to resist it.

“Ouch!” I glared at Aunty for pinching me. But she was shushing me with a finger to her lips, and pulling my shirt, which slipped out of my jeans. She let go and grabbed my arm and dragged me to her sitting room. Uncle John was in his armchair, unhappily reading a newspaper on his smartphone. “You can read the paper on your laptop too, Uncle.” He looked at me over his reading glasses while the thought settled. He rose slowly, observed us for a few seconds and then shuffled towards his bedroom.

“There’s a problem there, my dear,” Aunty Glory whispered, tilting her head at the family we had been spying on for some years. Initially it was unintentional. Once we understood there was a romantic liaison in progress, we were hooked – even on days when nothing happened.

We knew the lady slept away her mornings, but laboured for her family. She had a mother in law with whom she shelled peas and watched Hindi serials.

We watched the middle-aged lady in the room with her son. The husband was not visible. Maybe bathing. But the boy, probably about 10 years old, was handling his father’s phone. His mother watched from a corner of the room and they spoke. The son looked embarrassed and waved the phone at her. He assumed a fixed expression, probably playing a game, until his mother snatched the phone from his hands.

They began to argue and then, just as suddenly, the argument ended with the mother handing over the phone to the boy and going back to her chair. We watched for about half an hour, but nothing happened. I said goodbye to the Gonsalveses and left.

                                                  ******

This is a fictional series about the Mumbai-based 30-something narrator. While doing errands for her elderly friends, Aunty Glory and the narrator spy on a married couple in the next building and become party to a disturbing set of events.

                                                  ******

I looked at my wristwatch. It was past 7pm, and I had been ringing the bell for some time. I felt a frisson of fear. Were Uncle and Aunty okay? But before I could phone Anjali to get the Gonsalves’s keys, the door was unlatched.

Uncle looked serious and I moved into the dark sitting room. “What’s happening. Why haven’t you switched on the lights?”

He gestured at one end of the French windows. Aunty was watching the family across the courtyard with her binoculars. I had a sudden feeling of dread. I went over to her quickly. She handed me the binoculars and I watched the family whose habits I had come to know quite intimately. I felt a hint of shame that I was wasting my life in this fashion, but my attention was stuck on the young son.

He was hovering over his mother, clearly distressed. She was slumped in her armchair, spent from crying, her face red and blotchy and staring vacantly at a corner. In her hand was a phone. I wondered whose it was.

In a few minutes, it was clear.

The husband came in carrying groceries. His wife ignored him, but the son looked uncertain and upset. He stayed beside his mother. The father said something, but mother and son ignored him. He put the groceries on the floor in a corner of the flat and took off his mask. He put his hands on his hips and said something, but no one looked at him.

And then his body stiffened. He felt his pants pockets and realisation hit him. He went towards them uncertainly and the son moved away. His wife held out his phone. Before he could reach for it she threw it in his face and jumped up and started punching him. He tried to back away, but she rained blows on him. His elderly mother came in and tried to push her daughter in law away, but she backed away in a few minutes of the sustained attack.

Finally, the boy pushed himself between his parents. His father rushed into a bedroom and locked himself in. His wife tried opening the door, but couldn’t. She kicked the door, beat it with her fists and screamed. I hoped the invective was choice and extreme. The bastard. We could see neighbours at their windows, trying to catch what was being said. After trying to ram the door open with her body, the lady gave up and sat in her armchair and rocked herself. She looked at her husband’s phone and kept scrolling. Her frightened mother in law stood watching from the kitchen doorway.

“What do you think?” Aunty whispered in my ear. I dropped the binoculars in fright.

“Uh… I hope she beats the shit out of him!”

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I hope sh-she takes him to the police.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Police won’t help. They’ll say it’s a domestic issue, say he behaved like a man, probably ask her to forgive and forget. She’s got a lot to lose. Chances are,” Aunty looked at the woman and shrugged her shoulders, “the poor thing will try and forget it. Her mother in law will counsel her. She’ll be too embarrassed to tell her own family.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I rarely see her relatives. Only his family seems to make an appearance at festivals and other occasions. She’s definitely not a Mumbaikar.”

“How can you tell?”

“She goes away with her son every year for about three weeks. When she comes back, she’s got a lot of luggage and that dining table is usually loaded with bottles of pickles or jams and mangoes and goodies for some days. Like her mother made them for her...”

“… doesn’t mean anything…”

“… I’ve never seen a parent hugging her or her hugging someone.”

Or for that matter, being happy. She seemed to be slaving all the time… for others. In a permanent rush.

“Are you two happy?” Uncle said coldly from behind us.

We whirled around. Uncle was deeply upset. “Are you happy you watched someone’s joy being snuffed out, their life suddenly in shambles? What will you do now… share and dissect and glean a bitter truth?”

He glared at us both and moved slowly around the room, switching on the lights and the TV.

I looked at Aunty. For once she looked embarrassed and defensive. We sat next to each other on a sofa and watched Uncle surf channels. He ignored us, his lips tightly pressed together in strong disapproval.

I wondered what was happening with that poor family in the next building. Did the boy know? He had access to his father’s phone and knew the password. Did he know what his father was doing over the last year or more?

The silence in the G home stretched. After what felt like an eternity, I bade good bye and left.

                                                  ******