Patil checked his watch. Close to eleven. The night sky was pitch black and blank like his mind. This Sunday had been an exceptional one for him. He smirked mentally at the polarity of the day and night events, desirous of the painting’s glimpse. But too many people were obstructing the view.  ‘Gosh! Look at that wall painting! The word beautiful might feel downtrodden to associate itself with it. It is 26th April,  26th April, the world creativity and innovation day. For the watchers of Khabar Abhi Tak, a live telecast of an exceptional, sensational, and never-seen-before, a rare coverage of creativity. Only KAT brings you events to suit the calendar. Can you believe she painted this? Let us see if we can manage to talk to the artist. Only on KAT news channel- jaw-dropping news.’ Astonishment dropped from the journalist's eyes. She spoke to the camera, awestruck. Her manicured, long finger nails pointing at the camera with every, ‘are you aware?’ or ‘do you know what is happening in your city?’. Taut veins were making itself visible through her v-neckline blouse. She asked the cameraman to take a close-up of the wall painting. Her viewers needed to feel the irony of the situation. ‘Darshako, look at the vibrant red that adorns the walls. In sharp contrast to the musty red in the next room. Who could…’ ‘Madamji, move aside.’ Police officers quelled the mob of reporters that were plunging on to the exhibits of the house. People all around-a sea of them, wanting to witness the riot of colors. Cameras flashed, highlighting the painting. The red color of the painting glowed like the embers of fire. A vast stretch of amber red seemed to swallow the small, porcelain-like face of a woman. The face was not easily discernable, but once one’s gaze spotted the face, its beauty besotted the observer. The eyes shone with the power to hypnotize. Pull the connoisseur of art in the pools brimming at its rims. A tiny teardrop hung at ridges of the orbits. By now the enchanted observer would rush to gather the drop, as if the fall of the teardrop would crack the earth. The drop was stagnant. The innocent admirer fooled into falling for the unfathomable emotion.  Yet, not all onlookers were mesmerized by the art. Many found joy in discussing the life of the artist.  ‘She was not meant to be here.’ Patil, a man in his fifties, made his displeasure clear. Was anybody listening to him? The journalist found him muttering to himself. ‘Sir, could you tell us more about her?’ *** Gosh! Is it already 12! I overslept and now will have to rush with the chores. Breakfast, laundry, lunch, cleaning, and then, again everything on a repeat mode. Sunday mornings mean extra work. Chirayu. CHIRAYU. Thank God he is fast asleep. Before the rascal demands food and on not finding a cooked grain, gobbles me, I need to cook. Look at the way things lay strewn, as if a hurricane hit my home last night. Why is it that only I have to do this? Why me? Pal bhar ke liye koi hume pyar kar le… ‘Hello? Hello, Mumma.’  ‘Why I’m talking to you in whispers? That is because Chirayu is sleeping.’ ‘No, I won’t wake him. You know, once he wakes up, he will make me do all the work. And if I don’t…’ sniff sniff ‘No, I’m not crying, Mumma. Ya, I’m okay. Yes, I will take care. Yes, I will be a good wife. Yes, I will not disappoint my husband. Yes, Mumma. Yes, I will do as you say. Now let me prepare breakfast or else Chirayu will be mad at me.’ ‘But Mumma, do you love me?’ Click. Beep beep She always hangs up before answering my question. Only if Mumma once said she loves me, only if Chirayu uttered those three magical words…my world is a haze of ‘only ifs’. Incomplete tangents crisscross my reality. I’m fixed in them. Caught in the web. Bound by taut strings of hatred. Yes, they hate me. Loathe me. Curse me. My existence smothers them.  Mummaaaaa. I love you, Mumma. Call me back. Take me back to your warmth. Cuddle me. Comfort me in the patchwork quilt Nani made for me. Shield me from the world. Protect me, when Chirayu raises his hand to hit me. Put me to sleep when my wounds bleed tears of pain.  Call me back, Mumma. Take me back. To our house in Mussoorie. The hills enveloping a little girl in their grassy carpets. The wild flowers caressing her bare feet, as she rummaged for smooth pebbles in the bushes. The Mussoorie mud clinging to her yellow, blue, and white frocks. All pastel shades smudged with earth. You would scold her for missing homework and running after the butterflies. Yet, later bath her clean. Kiss her and embrace all her follies.  Why did the girl grow up? Why did we leave Mussoorie? This Mumbai life is doing me no good.  Ting tong. Ting tong. Tinnnnnng Yes, I’m coming. Must be a salesperson. 2 pm and their duty hours start. Let me check through the peephole. Shit!! It is that bulldog Patil.  ‘What is it? Why are you hung on my door like a voodoo doll? No other business.’ I shouldn’t have asked him this. Now he will lecture me on my business. ‘Mrs. Singh, your compost is again giving out a foul odor. As the respectable secretary of this society, I want you to dispose of the garbage now.’ Men in their fifties are like dinosaurs in the twentieth century-incongruous and intangible. Bloody misfits! ‘Don’t stare at me like that. I’m not scared of you. Understand.’ A trickle of perspiration glides down his forehead. ‘I’m not your husband to be scared of you. Remember, I’m the respectable secretary…’ Bastard! Didn’t even complete his sentence. Fled with the tail tucked between his legs. The compost reminds me that my babies are waiting for me.  ‘Darlings, I’m so sorry, I forgot your morning drink. Here you go, drink ample, my sweethearts.’ What if these rooted creatures don’t call me Mumma? I know I’m their mother. A mother who looks after her children. A mother is sufficient. Why does one require a father? I don’t know where mine is and I don’t see a reason for finding him. To be true, I don’t know how a father is. In Mussoorie, it was all about growing up with Mumma, Seema, and Nani-flowers, grasses, and hills-clouds, mist, and faintly flying birds. Sigh! ‘Hey Rosy, I see you will be making me a grandma again. What a lovely bud is that! Today I will feed you some extra compost. No, saying no. You need it for yourself and the baby.’ ‘Mary, aren’t you happy for your sister? Oh, don’t worry, soon there will be golden buds sprouting from you as well. Till then take care of Rosy. Be a good sibling.’ Sibling revelry is difficult to handle. Seema and me, I get what Mumma must have gone through. Seema, the bright child, yet the attention would be on me. Mumma had to comb my short hair, as I sat dreamy-eyed at the window, while Seema struggled with her long hair, all alone. She had to iron her uniform, pour herself a glass of milk, and get ready for school while Mumma fed me, dressed me, and packed my school bag.  ‘Seema, take care of Nandu. She won’t be able to navigate through the crowd.’ Mumma would pack off a list of instructions for Seema to care for me. ‘Why do you then send her to school?’ Seema would hiss under her breath. Exactly, I, too, had the same opinion. Why were they sending me to school? Letters and numbers meant nothing to me. Colors and curves were more meaningful. The crowd at school was indeed scary. Swarms of bees buzzing around. They attacked me with their sharpened pencils and rough erasers. I would scream in the class. Make my discomfort clear. Yet, the teacher complained to Mumma that I was imagining things and disturbing the class. It was for real. The students with outstretched arms, swirling on the playground, would suddenly develop wings. Their nose turned into pointed nozzles. Their larger-than-mouth eyes focused on me. In an instant, they attacked. The noise of their flapping wings, even now, haunts me. The punctures they made in my skin still raw.  But no one believed me. Then and now. Everybody teased Seema. ‘Seema has a wobbly-dobbly mad sister.’ I loved Seema. I still do. I hated it when she would be reduced to tears. My blood boiled. How dare they say those awful things to my sister! In a fit of rage, I had once or twice smashed the heads of the troublemakers with my water bottle.  The diligent elder sister did try to intervene, but the damage was already done. ‘Look, your daughter needs some intervention. We can’t keep them.’ The Principal’s stern face didn’t move an inch. Words fell from her thick rubber lips. ‘Why Seema, madam? Let her stay.’ Mumma begged. My fingers curled in a tight fist. ‘Who knows? She, too, might behave similarly.’ The Principal shrugged her shoulders and went about pouring over the newspapers. A tear rolled down Mumma’s cheeks. My fist tightened. Mumma held my hand. All I could manage was to kick the dustbin hard. We walked out of the school and Mussoorie. Since then, Seema chose to stay away from me.  Pal bhar ke liye… ‘Yes, Mumma. I know it is 3 and I must be cooking lunch. No, I won’t forget. You don’t have to remind me repeatedly. So what if I once forgot Chinu in the bathtub? Chal, I will call you later.’ Sniff sniff ‘Chinu, my love, where are you? Come back, my child.’ Those idiotic morons took away my daughter. They think they can care better. I wish Chirayu had supported me. That is the last thing I can expect from him. Yet, my heart yearns for his affection.  He wasn’t like this during the initial days of our marriage. He was a liberal man. He was okay with me not completing my studies and instead dedicating my teenage and youth to art. Being an engineer himself, he never desired an equally educated and highly paid wife. After innumerable rejections, I was thrilled to have found my soul-mate. Though Mumma seldom allowed us to meet in private, Chirayu found ways to surprise me with gifts. In his smooth, velvety voice, when he said I Love You, an eternal spring of flowers blossomed in my heart. Our phone calls, beginning in the evening, ran late into the night. Many times, there were cross connections. ‘Chirayu, is there somebody nearby?’ I would often ask. ‘No, dear. How can I talk to my fiancée in someone’s presence?’ ‘I’m sure someone is eaves-dropping our conservation. I can hear a woman’s voice.’ ‘Okay, and what is she saying? Must be envious of you. Jealous of the fact that a handsome hunk like me has fallen for you.’ His laughter would drown the voice. Maybe the other woman would vamoose, afraid of getting caught. Or maybe it was a cross connection only at my end. Mumma chided me for the endless conversations with Chirayu.  ‘It is not good to talk to your to-be-husband before marriage. Get married and do whatever you want.’ Mumma seemed frustrated and relieved at the same time. As the wedding date neared, Seema, who was by then married and settled in Canada, came to help with the preparations. Or that was what I thought. ‘You don’t understand what you are trying to get into. This alliance won’t work. Mumma, I’m telling you, withdraw. It isn’t late. Just back off. Chirayu is…’ I once overheard her threatening Mumma, but couldn’t bear to listen further. She was the jealous woman Chirayu spoke of. Seema was resentful of the fact that I had found a better prospect than her. Without a degree and lifestyle like her, I had landed myself a gold mine in the form of Chirayu. A gold-hearted person who loved me for me and not my degree or income.  But he changed. Strayed over the years. Especially after I forgot Chinu in the bathtub. Why don’t I forget this incident? I feel Satan governs memories. This beast only allows terrible memories to walk rampant in our minds. He keeps the good ones to himself. Not allowing them to visit us frequently. We need to beg, struggle, feel obliged before a happy memory blesses us. Even then, the aftertaste of this sweet memory leaves us teary-eyed. As if a punishment for being an adamant child, for asking for something that was not meant for us. Chinu, my daughter. Our daughter.  The initial years of my marriage were turbulent. What Chirayu found sweet and adorable in me, before marriage, became the biggest challenge in our relationship, post it. On the verge of parting ways, we discovered I was pregnant. He shut the pen opened for signing our divorce papers. The awful papers were pushed under the pile of my scan and blood reports.  Mumma, after years, started caring for me again. I wasn't allowed to travel or take walks outside, except for doctor's visits. It didn’t feel restrictive. I had a timetable to follow, most of the time-eat, sleep, drink. It didn’t feel repetitive. Chirayu once again began holding my hand while climbing the stairs or alighting from the car. I found energy for my art. The brush dipped in color, soaked my unhappiness, spread it on the canvas, and immortalized it in the painting. If melancholy had a color, it had to be red. The heart chose this color to bleed. The sun used it to say goodbye to the sky. The fire used it to propel heat. The red color took away my loneliness. Peace prevailed for nine months. Of all the good things, Seema called me. ‘Be a good mother. I’m happy for you.’ She spoke for long, but I remember just the bright fragments of the conversation. Mosaic fragments of my memory that don’t fit into a pattern.  Chinu arrived. Pink wrinkled skin covered in slippery fluid. The ball wriggling in me was out to set the ball of my fate rolling. Her cry made me believe there was going to be laughter in our life. There was. We laughed when Chinu entertained us with her antics. We smiled when we heard her cooing. We relaxed when she burped after a feed. After ages, it looked as if Chirayu and I were we again. Until I left her in the bathtub with the tap running. How could I not hear her muffled cries? How come the maid got a whiff of it? It was a trap plotted against me. Who? Probably that Patil who hates my compost. He must have bribed the maid.  ‘I hate you, rascal! They took my daughter away because of you, scoundrel. May you rot in hell!’ Or could it be Chirayu? He never loved me. His aim in life was to marry a wealthy Mumma’s daughter, fill his pockets, and then torture that girl so that she fled for her life. But I’m here. Not gone. So what if they took away my daughter? I will not leave this house.  Ting tong No one lets me even weep in peace. ‘Madamji, Patil sahab has called Chirayu sahab for the society meeting at 6 pm.’ ‘Remove that cloth covering your mouth. Can’t get a word. It is only 5:30 now. What time do you want him?’ ‘SIX, madamji.’ Bang Good for nothing, fellow.  Pal bhar ke liye ‘Mumma, if you keep calling me like this throughout the day, how will I work?’ ‘I don’t know what Chirayu is doing. I haven’t checked on him. Last night we had a fight and I’m in no mood to take his bashing again.’ ‘It hurts. My body feels as if I’m walking on a thousand needles. I wish you would have not married me to this demon. I can now just wish, Mumma.’ ‘Hmm…hmm…Arghhhh…I KNOW WHAT TO DO! HANG UP!’ Now and then, I get to hear how I should be a dutiful wife. No one tells Chirayu the same. Again, he has started to consider the divorce. He is the one who abuses me, says ugly things, beats me when things get out of control and I’m the one who has to bear the brunt of divorce. The tag of a man-less woman. I’m not supposed to raise my voice. Sit and fume within. How long is that possible? Last night, I spoke my mind. We argued. We fought. Blows of ugly accusations hit me. I hit in return. The darkness of the night crept into our complaints. Exhaustion took over. We slept. Tinnnng tonnng tinnnng tonnng Must be that watchman. It is over 6 pm and I have forgotten to wake up Chirayu. I need to check on him before I answer the doorbell.  Still asleep. Gosh! I have spilled my red color near his bed. Must clean before he starts his tirade of how a shabby wife I am. Pal bhar ke liye Uff! Mumma is never tired of calling me. ‘Yes, Mumma. What? You have come here? Wait, a moment.’ What makes Mumma arrive without prior intimation? ‘Oh, it is you at the door. I thought…’ ‘Nandini, where is Chirayu? Why is he sleeping for so long? Nandiniiii…’ *** ‘She never looked normal to me. Nandini would be seen speaking to herself, shouting, and accusing passer-bys for having played mischief with her. She would get violent when we would complain about her compost. Today, too, I thought it was her compost that was emitting the foul odor. I knew Chirayu suffered because of her mental condition, but I never imagined this would happen.’ The housing society secretary stood with hands folded at his back, watching the grey skies. The media thronged him with questions, as the police wrapped a decaying corpse in a white shroud. A woman identified as mad Nandini wailed, ‘I didn’t kill Chirayu. I just hit him when he refused to stop the blame game. I never did it.’ Another woman, to whom Nandini was referring to as Mumma, sobbed in her handkerchief.  The journalist ferried between the onlookers, and the art made on the walls by Nandini. She kept drawing parallels between the two sides of the same person. ‘An artist who is now a murderer. Is Nandini really mad? Is she suffering from any mental illness? Was her husband abusive? Or was he putting up with a mentally ill wife? Whom to blame for such an accident? Was it even an accident? KAT news will keep you posted on the investigation of Chirayu Singh's murder case.’ ‘Ae chalo re, clear the way or be ready for action.’ The police officers pushed the media and spectators to make way for the ambulance.  They thrust Nandini into the police van. ‘Patil, take care of my plants. Rosy is pregnant. You took away my Chinu. Don’t be cruel to Rosy’ Patil stood cemented to his site. He could see the wailing woman and her painting from his vantage point. A part of the plaster from the teardrop in the painting fell. The red remained intact.   Penmancy gets a small share of every purchase you make through these links, and every little helps us continue bringing you the reads you love!